charly
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Charly was a Berlin edtech startup running a digital learning platform. It had been founded by Cecil von Croÿ and Karl Bagusat as an online copyshop under the name Print Peter; after the accidental death of founder Karl Bagusat in 2019, the remaining team renamed the start-up 'Charly' and converted the business model into a digital learning platform. The company was never able to operate profitably — it was still in the red in 2019 — and raised about €7 million from investors in total (including around €3 million in February 2021). On March 1, 2022 it filed for insolvency proceedings under self-administration (Eigenverwaltung) with the Charlottenburg local court in Berlin, citing insolvency and over-indebtedness; the team said it intended to continue the learning platform and was in contact with old and new investors about restructuring.
02 / charly FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors supported by the current evidence
deutsche-startups.de (7 Mar 2022) quoted the insolvency court: proceedings over Charly's assets were opened as main insolvency for Zahlungsunfähigkeit (inability to pay) and Überschuldung (over-indebtedness), with self-administration ordered. The same article reported annual losses of about €1.6m in 2019 and €1.4m the year before.
The court opened proceedings for inability to pay debts and over-indebtedness.
The article cited multi-million-euro annual losses through 2019.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Bankruptcy
Berlin insolvency court opened main insolvency over Charly's assets for inability to pay and over-indebtedness, with Eigenverwaltung. Startbase (7 Mar 2022) cites Charlottenburg Local Court documents dated 4 Mar 2022 opening proceedings at noon on 1 Mar 2022.
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
2019: after the accidental death of co-founder Karl Bagusat, the former online-copyshop startup Print Peter was renamed 'Charly' and pivoted to a digital learning platform; the company was still in the red.
- 02
February 2021: the start-up raised around €3 million; total investor funding claimed at about €7 million.
- 03
March 1, 2022: the Charlottenburg Local Court in Berlin opened insolvency proceedings on Charly's assets due to insolvency and over-indebtedness at 12:00 noon; the start-up was granted self-administration, with co-founder Cecil von Croÿ confirming the team intended to continue the learning platform and reposition with new investors.