Gigaom, one of the pioneers in the tech blogosphere, has ceased operations after a nine-year run — apparently blowing through over $25 million in venture money and defaulting on a loan.
The end came swiftly — and with little warning.
The company’s website posted a “brief note on our company” Monday saying basically it was out of money and unable to make payments to creditors.
Silicon Valley Bank is said to be the creditor that pulled the plug, although nobody was answering the corporate phones Tuesday in Gigaom’s San Francisco office.
SVB had not returned an inquiry by presstime.
Although Gigaom was claiming 6.5 million unique visitors a month, comScore had it pegged at a lot less — just over 2 million uniques in January across all platforms, down about 10 percent from a year ago.
The last venture partner in the mix was Los Angeles-based Shea Ventures. Jason Schoettler, who served on the Gigaom board for Shea, did not return messages seeking comment.
Shea describes itself as a “late stage” venture capital firm.
The early stage investors included: True Ventures, which has Gigaom founder Om Malik and Jon Callaghan on the tech site’s board; Alloy Ventures, which has Ammar Hanafi on the board; and London-based Reed Elsevier Ventures, which has Kevin Brown on the board.
Malik, who founded the site in 2006, is also an investment partner in the True Venture firm and was said to have left day-to-day involvement with Gigaom a year ago.
None of the board members returned calls or emails seeking comment.
A note on its website Monday said: “Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time. As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company’s assets as their collateral. All operations have ceased. We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets. The company does not currently intend to file bankruptcy. We would like to take a moment and thank our readers and our community for supporting us all along.”
It was signed simply: “Gigaom management”
Gigaom seemed to be on the march in 2012 when it bought Content Next Media — which owned Paidcontent.com — from the UK’s Guardian, which had paid over $30 million to acquire the business. Gigaom reportedly paid only $5 million for the site.
Shortly before the announcement of Gigaom’s demise, staffers were still busy covering the Apple tech launch — and doing a good job.
Biz Carson, the assistant managing editor, tweeted “gigaom’s liveblog is minutes ahead of #applewatch livestream.”
By the end of Monday, Carson had tweeted: “Gigaom is shutting down, and today was our last day publishing. A surprise to us all.”
CEO Paul Walborsky, who joined in 2009, was out in September last year. He is now a strategic consultant at the New York Times, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Malik on Monday wrote, “Goodnight sweetheart, I still love you!”
He could not be reached for comment.