When Quincy launched last spring, it held a splashy Cupcakes and Champagne party at the Tribeca Grand Hotel with Uber car service home for members of the press.
It was founded by two 20-something Harvard Business School graduates, Alex Nelson and Christina Wallace, and Quincy quickly stole headlines. The apparel company, which promised to create great-fitting clothes for women that fit perfectly in the chest area, was featured in NBC New York, New York Times, InStyle, People Magazine, Lucky, Cosmopolitan, WWD, Marie Claire, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, All Things D, Forbes, Crain's and Business Insider.
But today, the company is closing up shop. It sent an email to its members offering 80% off on all remaining merchandise.
"On January 30th, Quincy is closing its online shop," it read. "We want to thank all of our customers for your support over the last year and a half as Quincy grew from an idea to a full collection."
In December its former CEO, Christina Wallace, departed. In an earlier Daily Muse article titled, "The Perfect Match: Finding the Right Co-Founder," the two said they met in 2008 and became fast friends. But going into business together can be tough.
The pair raised a seed round of financing. We've reached out to the company for comment.
This isn't the first startup we've seen shutter, and it won't be the last as investors become more skeptical of e-commerce and consumer businesses amid the Facebook fallout. A few months ago, desk-sharing startup Loosecubes closed its doors just weeks after reportedly raising $7.8 million.
UPDATE: Here's a little more color on why Quincy shut down. The obvious reason, other than a disagreement among co-founders, is the Series A crunch. While a lot of investors are willing to fund an early idea (a seed investment), fewer are willing to commit a few million to a Series A round without significant traction and proof of concept. While Quincy was able to raise the seed round, we've heard it was difficult for it to land that next bit of money to accelerate its growth.
In addition, a source tells us the company had issues fulfilling its core promise: producing better-fitting clothes. In other words, Quincy's number one selling point, which was that it could tailor clothing specifically to a woman's chest size, didn't deliver, and it received a good amount of returns stating as much. It's also hard to scale a business that's so customized.
Here's the email Quincy sent to its users:
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