The Quiet Death of Ello's Big Dreams - Waxy.org

Ello, a 2014 social network that promised to be ad-free, went offline in June 2023, making nine years of member posts inaccessible. Its venture funding made that outcome predictable, according to the argument here. Ello took a $435,000 seed round from FreshTracks Capital in January 2014, which the argument says the company did not disclose, and later that year raised a $5.5 million Series A co-led by TechStars and Foundry Group. Founders including CEO Paul Budnitz dismissed the concerns, and Ello later became a Public Benefit Corporation barring ads and data sales, though investor pressure remained the larger risk.