Capazoo
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Capazoo was a social networking and entertainment website launched around 2006: members added friends, wrote blogs and shared music, photos and videos, with a virtual currency called Zoops. Based in Montreal, it signed a $5 million infrastructure deal with Savvis in late 2007.
02 / Capazoo FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Capazoo shut down for a period in mid-2007. Four months after its October 2007 relaunch, the co-founders sued each other over alleged corruption inside the company. With the legal dispute unresolved, executives decided on March 13, 2008 to lay off the entire staff. The company went bankrupt and ceased all operations.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Liquidation
TechCrunch (19 Mar 2008) placed Capazoo in its Deadpool after the firm fired its entire ~60-person development team, leaving one sysadmin, with a for-rent sign on HQ. Montreal Gazette (18 Mar 2008) wrote the startup laid off remaining staff, unable to pay them a day longer, after investors refused further cash amid the Verville brothers’ control fight. English Wikipedia records the company ultimately bankrupt and ceased operations. Corporations Canada (opencorpdata republication of corp. 4365321): Capazoo World Corporation dissolved 13 Apr 2012 under CBCA s.212 after non-compliance pending from 15 Nov 2011.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Social network with virtual currency Zoops
- 02
Mid-2007 shutdown; Oct 2007 relaunch
- 03
Co-founders sue each other over corruption claims
- 04
Mar 2008: full staff laid off; bankruptcy