Runway.ly says a $125,000 credit-card balance is not debt but a pre-seed round with a very patient lead investor called Visa.
A San Francisco startup called Runway.ly now lets people with six-figure credit-card debt reclassify it as a pre-seed funding round. Groceries become customer acquisition and bankruptcy becomes a strategic wind-down. The company itself runs on its founder's Amex.
San Francisco fintech Runway.ly launched Founder Mode Bankruptcy on Tuesday, a product that lets anyone with six figures of credit-card debt reclassify it as a pre-seed round. Users upload their statements. The app returns a pitch deck, a cap table and a burn rate.
Groceries become customer acquisition. Rent is infrastructure spend. Two years without income is stealth mode. Chapter 7, the bankruptcy that wipes out most debt, becomes a strategic wind-down with a soft landing.
Founder Brayden Kessler, 26, said the language is the product. "Nobody says a startup that spent two years with zero revenue racked up debt," he said. "We say it extended its runway. Same money. Way better vibes."
"Same money. Way better vibes."
Six venture firms have signed on as downstream partners. In practice they forward each user's pitch deck to their spam folder at institutional grade. Runway.ly charges a 6 percent success fee, billed to the card.
The launch follows a run of letters to MarketWatch's advice columns from readers carrying six-figure card balances and asking how bankruptcy works. Kessler read them and saw a total addressable market. "These people are not drowning," he said. "They are pre-revenue."
Runway.ly is also pre-revenue. Its seed round sits on Kessler's Amex.
