ChangeTip Struggles to Sell Assets After Airbnb Acqui-Hire

Bitcoin micropayments startup ChangeTip is reportedly struggling to find a buyer after its engineering team was purchased by travel startup Airbnb in April.

According to emails provided to CoinDesk, ChangeTip has so far sought to sell its remaining assets to more than 60 companies, all of whom have passed on the deal. The company’s engineering team was purchased by Airbnb for $1.25m, sources said.

Notably, sources indicate that ChangeTip had recently been close to acquisition, but that this deal fell through for undisclosed reasons.

A company executive wrote to investors:

"I’ve been working to sell the remainder of the assets of ChangeTip and [its] remaining engineers, but have not yet found a suitable buyer."

Once one of the more popular consumer-focused bitcoin startups, ChangeTip’s parent company ChangeCoin raised upwards of $4m in three public funding rounds.

An additional $640,000 was raised in an emergency round in the run-up to the sale – a measure deemed necessary because the company had nearly run out of funds as of January 2016.

Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in ChangeCoin.

Image via ChangeTip