The fall and fall of the Peter Thiel-backed right-wing fintech app GloriFi
GloriFi’s failure is proof that ethos is no substitute for business acumen.
The “anti-woke” fintech startup backed by Peter Thiel was meant to give conservative customers fed up with what they perceived as Wall Street’s liberal drift an opportunity to open accounts, get credit and debit cards, and eventually insurance and mortgages . But it was a bag of blunders from the start. Poor leadership and a struggle to raise funds have cut the lifeline incredibly short – just two months after its launch in September.
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The startup, which promoted what it considered to be “pro-American” values such as capitalism, family, law enforcement and the freedom to “celebrate your love for God and country,” is winding down because it “experienced a number of financial challenges related to startup failures, reputational attacks, the declining economy and several negative media stories,” the website says. (This is the exact language used by Cathy Landtroop, the company’s chief marketing and communications officer, in an email to employees seen by the Wall Street Journal, which first broke the news.)
After failing to secure funding to get through the first quarter of 2023, GloriFi has laid off most of its employees and begun helping customers resolve their accounts.
At the time of reporting, GloriFi’s was TwitterInstagram and LinkedIn accounts were gone.
A brief timeline of GloriFi’s crumbling
July 25: GloriFi agrees to go public via special purpose vehicle acquisition company (SPAC) deal, valuing right-wing fintech firm at $1.7 billion
September 20: GloriFi, the banking fintech app provided by Texas-based TransPecos Banks, debuts on the Apple App Store
October 10: An article in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on GloriFi’s problems, including launch delays due to regulatory hiccups, mass layoffs, botched technology flaws, and how the company burned through investor money so quickly that it ended up on the brink of bankruptcy. Details include founder-CEO Toby Neugebauer’s 16,000-square-foot Dallas home that doubles as GloriFi’s office, with employees exposed to his volatile behavior and excessive drinking; an impractical plan to make credit cards out of shell casings, which would interfere with security chips and potentially be too thick for payment terminals; and a potential homeowners policy that would provide discounts to gun owners
October 17: Neugebauer steps down as CEO after WSJ exposé
November 21: GloriFi announces that it is discontinuing operations
Person of interest: Peter Thiel
Toby Neugebauer and his wife Melissa began working with GloriFi in late 2021 and ended up amassing 84 backers, including Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Nick Ayers and controversial conservative commentator Candace Owens.
In the first few months, Neugebauer put in $10,000 of his own, and pulled in tens of millions of dollars from big investors like hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin and Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk.
Thiel, one of Facebook’s first investors and former partner at incubator Y Combinator, is an unsurprising entry on this list given that he is known for spending his money on causes that promote his conservative beliefs.
🗳 Policy: Thiel was one of the biggest donors to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and he supported Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance, who compared abortion to slavery.
📱Apps: Thiel’s most popular conservative app investment is in the first alt-right social media platform to go public, Rumble.
Thiel, a lesser-known investment, pumped $1.5 million into a right-wing, invite-only dating app called The Right Stuff, whose ads showed women seeking “alpha males” and called it being a Democrat for a “red flag”. Failing to attract women to its platform, a slow registration process, and glitchy and slow tech, were among the more predictable issues for the app where conspiracy theorists reported theirs fluorophobia. Some users claimed in the app reviews that they were contacted by the FBI by responding to a profile message about the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, but the app dismissed the reports as trolling.
Don’t mix the two: GloriFi vs Glorify
While GloriFi flourishes Glorify.
The Christian worship and meditation app was founded in the UK in 2020. In December 2020, it raised $40 million from Japan’s SoftBank, California-based VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, and reality TV star Kris Jenner. In the next round, HeadSpace for Christians got singers Michael Bublé and Jason Derulo on board as investors. According to the Google Play Store, it has been downloaded over 5 million times.
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