AchetypeMe, an eCommerce site backed by the troubled Revolate investment firm, is laying off 75 percent of its 40-person staff, the Post has learned.
The firm, named by Time magazine as one of the “Start-ups to watch in 2013,” is the third company backed by Andrew Spellman’s Revolate Holdings to run into financial trouble in recent weeks.
Recently, the Meatpacking District’s Lipman luxury ad agency, also backed by Revolate, shut its doors and, like Revolate, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Revolate also invested in a human-resources firm, Number 14, run by Marci Freedman.
That firm, based at Lipman’s 408 W. 14 St. office, was no longer in operation, people close to the company said. Emails and voicemails to the firm seeking comment were not immediately returned.
“[ArchetypeMe] is not going out of business,” a spokesman for Sitrick and Co., a crisis PR firm, said. “The board decided to take a series of significant and necessary cost-cutting steps, including layoffs, to modify the business in order to preserve the vision for the company.”
Cristina Carlino, founder of the Philosophy beauty brand, is co-creator of ArchetypeMe.
Carlino is said to be a close personal friend of Spellman, who appears to have officially exited Revolate earlier this year.
Michael Mendenhall, once president at Lipman, joined Archetypes Inc., earlier this year.
Revolate and Lipman have been sued by jeweler Harry Winston over $1 million in media buys it claims the agency diverted for its own use.
The bankruptcy left a slew of high-profile names, like supermodel Kate Moss and photographer Mario Testino, without payment for ad campaigns.
The agency had clients such as 7 For All Mankind and Stuart Weitzman.
Revolate counted a host of investors, including former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond.