Vega Cloud, a Spokane-area tech startup that makes software program to assist firms handle their cloud spending, has been positioned into the arms of a receiver after declaring it might not pay its money owed.
Amongst these money owed: almost $830,000 owed to cloud large Amazon Internet Companies.
Vega Cloud, based in 2018 and based mostly in Liberty Lake, Wash., had raised $12.2 million and reached about $7 million in annual income as of 2023, in line with PitchBook information. It had additionally cracked the GeekWire 200 — rating #181 in the latest quarterly replace of our Pacific Northwest startup index.
What introduced Vega Cloud up to now isn’t clear. Responding to our e mail inquiry this weekend, co-founder and CEO Kris Bliesner mentioned the corporate goes by means of a restructuring by way of receivership, and mentioned he wished he might say extra in regards to the scenario.
The corporate had lower than $17,000 within the financial institution when it was positioned into receivership Thursday, Jan. 15, in King County Superior Courtroom in Seattle, the submitting reveals. It employed about 35 individuals as of earlier this month, down from about 65 two years in the past, in line with LinkedIn.
Receivership is a state-level course of typically used as an alternative choice to chapter. On this case, Vega Cloud executed what’s often known as an Task for the Advantage of Collectors, which places a impartial social gathering in control of the corporate, pauses creditor collections, and locations selections about asset gross sales and funds beneath court docket supervision.
Generally these belongings promote principally intact, permitting new traders to present a enterprise one other strive. However at this level, it’s not but clear what is going to occur to the corporate’s staff or product.
Previous ambitions for an IPO
In a March 2024 interview for GeekWire’s particular collection on Spokane, Bliesner described Vega Cloud’s trajectory in optimistic phrases, saying the corporate was planning a $20 million to $30 million funding spherical and eyeing the general public markets.
“We’re making an attempt to push the envelope at Vega to possibly do the IPO route,” Bliesner mentioned on the time. “We expect that’s a viable factor for us.”
Vega Cloud operates within the sector often known as FinOps, quick for monetary operations, serving to firms get a deal with on their cloud spending by bringing collectively finance and technical groups to trace prices and keep away from waste.
That is turning into increasingly necessary as companies pour cash into cloud computing, typically with out realizing how a lot they’re spending on unused assets. Vega Cloud targeted particularly on serving to mid-sized firms handle spending throughout AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, utilizing automated instruments to identify issues and advocate fixes.
Within the tight-knit Spokane tech group, Vega Cloud has been seen as a startup with the potential to make it massive. We took be aware of the corporate in 2022, when it raised $9 million.
Investor and entrepreneur Martin Tobias, a longtime fixture in Pacific Northwest enterprise tech, invested in Vega Cloud shortly after shifting from Seattle to Spokane in the course of the pandemic. He advised us in early 2024 that it will most likely be considered one of his most profitable investments.
Tobias mentioned Bliesner was precisely the type of founder he appears to be like for: somebody with deep expertise in a market who had tried to resolve one thing a method, realized it wasn’t going to scale, and got here up with a greater answer.
“He took a brand new strategy to an outdated downside,” Tobias mentioned on the time.
Bliesner beforehand co-founded cloud migration startup 2nd Watch, which raised about $56 million earlier than promoting a majority curiosity to Singapore-based investor ST Telemedia.
Monetary particulars from the submitting
Vega Cloud’s court docket filings give an inside take a look at the privately held enterprise.
First, the corporate had actual prospects and income. The filings record contracts with firms together with Paramount, Hearst, Deloitte, Molina Healthcare, John Wiley & Sons, and Cal Poly, amongst others. It lists roughly $264,000 in accounts receivable.
The biggest secured creditor is Solar Mountain Personal Credit score Fund I, owed $3.5 million. That debt is backed by Vega Cloud’s mental property — its software program, patents, emblems, and domains. Any proceeds from a sale of these belongings would go first to that lender.
Along with the roughly $830,000 owed to AWS, the court docket information present convertible promissory notes totaling about $2.5 million that have been issued to traders all through 2025.
The information record present and former staff who’re owed unpaid commissions, bonuses, and expense reimbursements, with some bonus obligations courting again to 2023. The corporate additionally owes payroll and withholding taxes to the IRS and a number of state tax companies.
Bliesner is the biggest shareholder at about 30%. Different important traders embody Album Ventures (10%), Cowles Firm (3%), Rudeen & Firm (3%), Kick-Begin III and IV (mixed 4%), Tacoma Enterprise Fund (1.5%), and Pitbull Ventures (1%).
The shareholder record additionally consists of Voyager Capital, Alliance of Angels, Incisive Ventures, and Morning Star Basis, together with dozens of particular person traders.
Beneath court docket supervision, the receiver can now take possession of Vega Cloud’s belongings and information, safe its financial institution accounts and information, consider and promote belongings equivalent to mental property, acquire remaining receivables, and distribute proceeds to collectors in precedence order.
The filings don’t embody a timeline for asset gross sales or any plan for the enterprise to proceed working. These particulars sometimes emerge later by means of receiver stories.
