December 4, 2023

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Interior Design Startup Homepolish Company Is Out of Money

Interior Design Startup Homepolish Company Is Out of Money

Homepolish CEO told designers the company owes “millions” to the bank.
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer

Back in 2016, home design start-up Homepolish raised $20 million in funding. This week, CEO Noa Santos told designers it’s all gone. “We frankly don’t have the funding left to run the business on an ongoing basis,” Santos said in a video conference call on Wednesday with the company’s remaining employees, according to a recording provided to Intelligencer. “The bank has the legal right to all money it is owed, which is in the millions, before any potential creditor would receive any money owed to them, that includes me.”

The company laid off most of its staff and abandoned its Manhattan lease in August, the design trade publication Business of Home reported last month. In June, remaining staff were placed on an “unpaid leave of absence.” “Many were then asked to sign contracts indicating no formal promise of backpay or a bonus,” BOH also reported. (Santos told BOH he intended to offer those things, despite the contracts, if he was able to secure more funding.) On the call Wednesday, Santos said that designers will not be paid any owed earnings and customers will not be receiving refunds. Santos urged the more than 200 people on the call to “think intelligently … as opposed to jumping to legal action which could work very much against all of us.”

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