Online retailer Boxed announced Sunday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The company, which said it will wind down its retail operations over the next several weeks, listed in its court petition $102.6 million in total assets and $190.4 million in total debts.
Boxed had been showing signs of financial distress for months. It received warnings from the New York Stock Exchange last fall after its stock price and average market capitalization fell below the listing threshold. In January, the company revealed it was weighing a sale of the business, and two months later, the company said it was considering filing for bankruptcy.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision, and one that we reached only after carefully evaluating and exhausting all available options,” Boxed co-founder and CEO Chieh Huang said in a statement. “Although this outcome is not what we worked so hard for, we are thankful to everyone, including our customers, who have supported us along the way.”
Boxed, which sells bulk-sized pantry items and runs a grocery delivery business in New York City, also sells e-commerce technology to other retailers and has counted Japanese grocer Aeon among its clients. It intends to sell its Spresso software business to its first lien lenders and said customers of that business will not experience any disruptions during the bankruptcy process.
Founded in 2013, Boxed rose to prominence as an online competitor to club retailers like Costco and Sam’s Club. The company built its own tech stack and reportedly turned down acquisition offers from Kroger and Amazon several years ago. It went public in 2021 by combining with special purpose acquisition company Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp.
