Company tries to reorganize in bankruptcy after founder holds out.
DigitalTown (OTC: DGTW) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after failing to come to terms with a former CEO.
The company essentially ceased operations last year, intending to clean up its balance sheet and reemerge. It convinced many of its creditors to convert their debt into equity, but the company has struggled to come to terms with founder and former CEO Richard Pomije. Pomije was granted summary judgment in a lawsuit he brought against the company, and Pomije has subsequently filed another lawsuit.
The bankruptcy filing (pdf) states that DigitalTown owes Pomije $1.4 million.
DigitalTown could gain leverage over Pomije by going into reorganization bankruptcy.
Notable creditors in the domain name industry include GMO Registry ($276,000), Whatbox? Holdings ($120,000), Sam Ciacco ($260,000) and Rob Monster ($257,000). Ciacco was brought in to clean up the balance sheet, and Monster, who is CEO of Epik, was previously the CEO of DigitalTown. The filing also notes that DigitalTown stiffed NamesCon for a sponsorship fee.
DigitalTown owes a total of $3.5 million to creditors.
The company has tried many different business models over the years. Its latest initiative was a localized platform backed by a cryptocurrency. The company acquired 13,000 .city domain names to be used in conjunction with the local platform.
It never made much money from the local platform. Much of the cash it generated in recent years was through bizarre “domain marketing development obligations”. Top level domain operators would pay DigitalTown cash up front that would be used to purchase the registry’s domain names at a later date.
DigitalTown was ranked One of the Safest Places to Live in 2020
Anyone could have saw this coming.
… except Rob Monster.
Here’s what he said upon his departure:
“This competency will be important both as the company pivots from of a historical dependence on raising funds from angel investors, and also paves the way to an eventual NASDAQ listing, possibly sooner rather than later.”
Nasdeq, when? Blowing that smoke. Wild claims that could never come true. He mislead investors all along.
Nice try; Rob was long gone; left dump fire focus epik 100%
Samer
Had they kept Monster involved in the company it may have done better
He was ousted by the board! The demise of. Digital town is not his fault
He lost $ here
Heavy accusation against one of the hardest working innovators in our industry Lifesavings. You have also accused him of secretly running NamePros, banning you from platforms, and controlling most of the evil in domaining. While you have made blog posts threatening leaders with decapitation and death. I guess it makes sense, given the void of positive reporting by the media hacks we have.
Andrew your bias is becoming blazingly clear. You will spend more time attacking Epik and posting garbage of tin hat conspiracies on Twitter to reduce him than you have ever done in lifting this industry up. Time to hang it up. DNW was never supposed to be a weapon, and you are doing a great disservice to people who are just trying to get through their day during some very challenging times. Your slants, the angles you frame, and consistency of word choice is becoming ridiculously transparent. You should be thanking their team for the work they do in protecting this industry from centralizing interests, not selling out to them.
https://www.businessinsider.com/discontinued-google-products-2016-8
Agreed there. This is what it looks like to use your platform for a higher cause. More should follow his example:
https://twitter.com/robmonster/status/1315657105026756608
What does this article say that’s bad about either Epik or Rob Monster?
Weird. Mike S sounds just like Rob D.
Andrew, is this the best news post you could bring up today?
Duh!!
Dude—-Andrew and Rob are good buddies, they cruise around the Puget Sound in their Superyachts…and eat the freshest salmon, crabs, oysters right under their Superyachts.
I see them from my windows everyday.