Skully Helmets has finally managed to hit the “big time”. That would be in the business section of the San Francisco Bay Area's most widely distributed newspaper, the Mercury News. In a long article, written by Marisa Kendall of the Bay Area News Group, published today, titled: “Startup Accused of Misusing Cash” and subtitled: “Lawsuit filed by ex-assistant says founders expensed vacations, sports cars, strip club visit before company ran out of money.”
In particular, the article says that the Skully helmet company is accused of spending its investors' funds on “vacations, sports cars, their San Francisco rents, weekly apartment cleanings, meals out and a strip club”. The former Skully employee says that “the company was a 'sham' and the founders, brothers Marcus and Mitchell Weller, expensed their lavish lifestyles. When the money ran out last week, the company shut down.”, according to the article. The complaint says that “The Wellers used Skully corporate accounts as their personal piggy banks and demanded that plaintiff conceal the true nature of the expenses by entering them in Skully's books to make it appear that the expenses were legitimate business expenses, which in fact they were clearly not.” The article says that the founders purchased two Dodge Vipers, an Audi R8, limo rides in Florida and a $2,000 charge at a strip club. When the employee, Isabelle Faithhauer, pointed out the error of their ways, she was fired and not compensated for much of her work.
2,000 crowd-funding backers dumped $2.4 million into the company, along with many hopeful customers who pre-ordered the helmets with a $1,400 deposit. Skully also raised $11 million last year from various investors, including Intel Capital and Walden Riverwood Ventures. The article says that the customers who ordered the helmets are unlikely to receive their deposits back and no one was promised a refund on the Indiegogo crowd-funding system. Skully's last CEO was Martin Fichter, who promised that Skully would deliver 400 helmets to customers by the end of July, with the remaining pre-orders shipping throughout the summer. “Less than a month later, Skully called it quits, announced the company plans to file for bankruptcy, and apologized to customers, employees and partners.”
