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Austin-based startup accelerator Newchip announced May 12 it is shutting down, the Austin Business Journal reported. "It's with a heavy heart that I announce the closure of Newchip today,” founder and CEO Andrew Ryan posted to LinkedIn, along with a lengthy explanation. The company, legally known as AstraLabs Inc., has been dealing with a chapter 11 reorganization case that started on March 17. On May 12, a bankruptcy judge ordered the case to be converted into a chapter 7 business liquidation. A meeting of creditors has been set for June 16. The Austin-based company was founded in 2016 by Ryan, Nihar Patel and Travis Brodeen and has operated a virtual incubator and accelerator to help early-stage founders grow their businesses. Newchip raised $7.9 million across several rounds of venture funding, including a $250,000 round in February this year, according to Crunchbase. Despite its history of connecting entrepreneurs with startup capital — Newchip's website boasts that it works with investors at Elevate Capital, DreamIt and others — the accelerator's finances have fallen into disarray, according to a May 10 motion from Shane Tobin on behalf of Eric Terry, the U.S. Trustee assigned to the case. The document states the company doesn’t have enough money on hand to cover its next payroll on May 15 or its other expenses.

Satellite launch company Virgin Orbit is planning to move back the deadline for prospective bidders to buy its assets by a handful of days, Reuters reported. Virgin Orbit, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April after the company struggled to secure long-term funding following a failed satellite launch in January. Virgin Orbit went public two years ago at a valuation of roughly $3 billion, but the January mishap left the company scrambling for new funding and forced it to halt operations. U.S. rocket startups have faced a tight funding environment, exacerbated by the Virgin Orbit bankruptcy. Venture investment in space startups has dropped 50% year-over-year in 2022, according to VC firm Space Capital.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, under a siege of lawsuits from 438 people who say they were sexually abused by its clergy in past decades, said it plans to file for bankruptcy protection in November, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Such a move, spelled out in court papers filed this week and in a hearing in San Diego Superior Court yesterday, would halt all lawsuits against the diocese until the bankruptcy is complete and a universal settlement of all the claims is reached through the bankruptcy process. The diocese, which includes 96 parishes and serves some 1.3 million Roman Catholics in San Diego and Imperial counties, had said in February it was pondering filing for bankruptcy and would likely make a decision by late spring. It would mark the diocese’s second time filing for bankruptcy. It did so in 2007, eventually settling 148 claims of sexual abuse for $198 million.

BlockFi Inc. customers who tried to reclaim nearly $300 million in crypto after the company froze transfers last year don’t have a right to the digital assets, a judge ruled, handing potential losses to investors who held interest-bearing accounts, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan sided with the company and dismissed the objections of a group of customers, who argued that they retained rights to the coins even before they were moved into a secure digital wallet. Those who kept their assets in interest-bearing accounts gave up certain ownership rights, while those in custodial accounts did not. To protect themselves around the time of the freeze, users rushed to move coins into the safer digital wallets. BlockFi, which is based in Jersey City, filed for bankruptcy in November with plans to either sell or reorganize its business to repay creditors. The ruling is similar to those made in other crypto-company bankruptcies. A federal judge in New York ruled that Celsius Network owns the coins that users placed in interest-bearing accounts. Judge Kaplan found that BlockFi stopped all transfers on Nov. 10 at 8:15 p.m. Some customers tried to move their assets to safer custodial wallets afterward and got messages on the company’s app saying their transfers were complete — but those notices were wrong, Judge Kaplan ruled during a short court hearing yesterday.

Deposit withdrawals from U.S. banks following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank were concentrated in around 30 "super-regional" institutions in the $50 billion to $250 billion range, similar to SVB, New York Fed researchers concluded in a newly released study, Reuters reported. Deposits among thousands of "community and smaller regional banks ... were relatively stable by comparison" during March, the researchers found, with the largest, most systemically important firms receiving the deposits that left the super-regional group. Though there were concerns about a broader run on bank deposits after the failure of SVB on March 10 and Signature Bank on March 12, the NY Fed study points to what Fed officials themselves seemed to conclude early on: that the problems were focused in a discrete set of institutions. There were fears that banking sector weaknesses might touch off a wave of mergers that would wipe out smaller institutions - to the potential detriment, for example, of small business lending.

Revlon Group Holdings emerged from bankruptcy last week with $2.7 billion less debt to worry about, but a balance-sheet makeover alone won’t help the company reclaim its place in an industry it shaped nearly a century ago, according to a Bloomberg News commentary. Big rivals such as L’Oreal SA and Estée Lauder have deeper pockets, while newer brands including Rare Beauty and e.l.f. Cosmetics have captured the imagination of young consumers. What Revlon needs is a niche it can own that plays to its strong connections among Gen X and millennials, two cohorts with an abundance of spending power that grew up with the brand, according to the commentary. It helps that consumers in the U.S. are more willing to spend on beauty these days. Consultancy McKinsey & Co. estimates that annual sales in the sector over the next few years will increase at nearly double the 4% pace seen pre-pandemic. The market for anti-aging products, from creams and lotions to ampoules and serums, reached $5.3 billion last year, growing 24% since 2017, according to market research provider Euromonitor International, which forecasts sales to grow 27% to $6.8 billion by 2027.

Foxconn Technology Group will be able to make good use of its electric-vehicle factory in Lordstown, Ohio, no matter how its dispute with Lordstown Motors Corp. is resolved, Chairman Young Liu said, Bloomberg News reported. Earlier this month, Lordstown Motors warned that it may be forced to cease operations after Foxconn said that it’s prepared to pull out of a production partnership with the EV maker. “We remain open to continued dialogue to find the best solution for each other,” Liu said in a post-earnings briefing yesterday. Foxconn agreed last year to invest as much as $170 million in Lordstown Motors, giving the company much-needed capital to build electrified trucks. The deal, along with the $230 million purchase of the former General Motors Co. factory in Ohio, is part of Foxconn’s plan to strengthen its position as a provider of EV production capacity and technology. “We are taking a multi-customer approach to optimize and allocate this capacity we have in Ohio,” Liu said, adding that the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act has made the factory more attractive. “In the past couple of years, Foxconn has been proactively seeking customers. Now, the interest is two-way; we are also being approached by potential customers as well — I’m talking about traditional auto OEMs.” Lordstown Motors said in a May 1 filing that its deal with Foxconn could unravel after the Taiwanese company threatened to withhold funding, and that it was seeking alternative financing. Shares of Lordstown Motors have declined 68% this year.

A Garner company linked to the founder of a defunct charter school in Raleigh, N.C., has filed for bankruptcy protection, the Triangle Business Journal reported. The company, called S.O.D Holdings, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and lists its manager as Donnie McQueen, the entrepreneur behind Torchlight Academy. McQueen registered S.O.D to do business in North Carolina in 2019. The holding company holds the deed for the property that housed Torchlight. The 1.62-acre property – at 3211 Bramer Drive off Atlantic Avenue in northeast Raleigh – is valued at nearly $4 million, according to Wake County property records, and includes the more than 20,000-square-foot building that housed the school. Both S.O.D’s assets and liabilities range between $1 million and $10 million, according to the bankruptcy filing, dated May 5. Creditors include the North Carolina Department of Revenue and North State Bank.