GloriFi, a Texas-based financial start-up that positioned itself as anti-woke, is set to shutter.
The company has been forced to lay off the majority of its workforce as crucial operational funding expected to sustain GloriFi into the beginning of 2023 unexpectedly fell through, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
In an email sent to employees Friday, GloriFi’s chief marketing and communications officer Cathy Landtroop explained that “financial challenges related to startup mistakes, the failing economy, reputational attacks, and multiple negative stories took their toll.”
Since the bank was first conceived, it blew through its initial investments, missed deadlines, encountered major legal obstacles, and suffered infighting among investors.
The company had made a point of calling out the liberal drift of Wall Street in recent years, offering clients the opportunity to celebrate their “love of God and country” instead.
Among the major initiatives that GloriFi vocally opposed were a slew of pledges from Citigroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase to prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations in their investments. Other financial firms have severed relations with corporate clients due to their involvement in fossil fuels and the firearms industry.
GloriFi had brought together many personalities from across the conservative world. Close Trump ally and PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel invested in the firm, as did Vivek Ramaswamy (author of Woke Inc.) and Georgia’s former Republican senator, Kelly Loeffler. Former vice president Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, was one of the company’s senior business partners.
The Daily Wire‘s Candace Owens, who recently found herself in hot water for defending Kanye West in the wake of several antisemitic statements, served as GloriFi’s public persona in commercials and social-media blasts.
“I very much believe in GloriFi and view it to be the first true mark of what I perceive to be a competitive, conservative economy that is forming,” Owens told the Wall Street Journal in October.
The company raised $50 million last year to fund operations.