Accounting startup Bench, which went bust over the holidays, filed for bankruptcy in Canada on January 7, disclosing massive debt, according to documents seen by TechCrunch.

The documents - one for Bench and another for 10Sheet, Bench's original name - show that at the end of his life, Bench had $2.8 million in cash on hand but $65.4 million in liabilities. (TechCrunch converts bankruptcy filing data from Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars at an exchange rate of 1.44 Canadian dollars per U.S. dollar.) Bench, founded in 2012, has raised $113 million from investors including Shopify and Bain Capital Ventures.

The majority of Bench's debt - $50 million - is owed to the National Bank of Canada, one of Canada's largest commercial banks. More than 85% of the debt is unsecured, meaning the bank has little collateral to cover the loan now that Bench has defaulted. The debt may have prompted Bench's sudden closure: Tech publication Newcomer reported that NBC was refusing to make concessions to Bench as it shopped around for a sale. NBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bankruptcy filing also disclosed the financial obligations of Bench's venture capital investors, divided into convertible notes (intended to be converted into equity) and direct shareholder loans. Bench owes $1.3 million to Bain Capital Ventures, whose partner Sarah Hinkfuss was appointed to Bench's board of directors in 2023, according to a press release. Bench also owes $1.2 million to Canadian VC Inovia Capital, whose resident executive Adam Schlesinger was named Bench's final CEO, documents show. Contour Venture Partners, a New York-based venture capital firm that led Bench's $60 million Series C round, currently owes about $750,000 in debt. Another investor, California-based Altos Ventures, is owed $777,000. All of this venture-related debt is unsecured, the filing said.

Bench's other liabilities include $1.8 million in severance payments to former employees, the filing said. TechCrunch previously reported that Bench employees were suddenly fired on December 27 without any notice or severance pay. (Bench’s new owner, Employer.com, said it has rehired a number of employees, but told TechCrunch they were on temporary 30-day contracts while Bench worked through the issues.)

Bench also owes former executives tens of thousands of dollars in severance packages: CEO Jean-Philippe Durrios, CRO Todd Daum and CFO Mor Lakritz are all listed in the filing. Lakritz's LinkedIn says Bench's annual recurring revenue is about $50 million.

Finally, the bankruptcy filing reveals that Bench owes Canadian real estate agency Morguard $4 million in unpaid rent, likely for its offices. At its peak, Bench had more than 600 employees. There's no indication in the filing where the rest of the money will be spent, except for about $1.5 million (based on our back-of-the-envelope calculations) owed to employees, office space and due to the scattering of expected creditors such as the SaaS business software provider.

At the same time that Bench was going through bankruptcy, it was also being acquired by Employer.com, a San Francisco-based HR technology company. Although its customers also told TechCrunch that Employer.com requires them to hand over their data to their employer or risk losing it.

Gary Levin, head of corporate development at Employer.com, told TechCrunch that Canadian courts are overseeing Bench's bankruptcy proceedings and will oversee the distribution of proceeds to creditors. He emphasized that Employer.com has a strong balance sheet, allowing it to make significant progress on Bench's investment.