Gear rental company Lumoid sells off assets, according to founder

Photography gear rental company Lumoid has ceased operations, according to Facebook post by founder Aarthi Ramamurthy. The news came despite a notice on the Lumoid website saying the business has “paused,” not ceased.

The post states: “I just joined Facebook to work on Payments… 4.5 years ago, I bought the Lumoid domain name and applied to YC with a crazy idea. We built something people wanted, accomplished a LOT as a small team, had a lot of fun in the process and learned so much. I’m forever thankful to my team – let’s be real – we’re all insane people for doing what we did, and thankful for our investors who believed in us when no one else did…Over the last 4 months, we gradually wound down Lumoid, sold off assets and IP, and helped the team transition as best as we could.”

According to Crunchbase, Lumoid’s try-before-you-buy model gained it $5.9 million in venture capital, as well as high-profile partnership with Best Buy. But Ramamurthy, however, told TechCrunch the inability to secure necessary funds to gear up for that partnership led to the closure. “As a result, we decided to wind down the business,” she said.