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A local sporting goods company, which was among Louisville's fastest-growing companies last year, has filed for bankruptcy, the Louisville Business First reported. Guardian Baseball filed for chapter 11 protection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Kentucky on Aug. 3. According to the filing, the e-commerce baseball and softball equipment retailer has between $500,000 and $1 million in assets, and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million. Its largest creditors are Elan-Polo ($256,947), American Express ($155,696), Capital One ($139,784), Stinger Bat ($130,460) and Amer Sports ($119,585). Guardian Baseball, founded by Zev Bernard, president and Matt Kubancik, CEO, was No. 4 on Louisville Business First's Fast 50 list in 2022. It reported nearly 1,000% three-year revenue growth, growing from $455,000 in revenue in 2019 to $5 million in 2021.

InteliGlas, a provider of artificial-intelligence products for office buildings, has filed for bankruptcy as a result of a dispute with one of its co-founders and shareholders, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company, which serves seven office buildings for four customers, installs smart sensors and software in properties to help bring down utility costs. In a sworn declaration filed on Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., InteliGlas Chief Executive Scott Martin said shareholder and co-founder Robert Granadino had been wrongly taking money out of the businesses. Granadino, who was also its chief operating officer, started another company that provided the same storm-drain maintenance technology offered by InteliGlas, further hurting its business, Martin said. InteliGlas, which installed its first system in 2019, had revenue of roughly $164,000 this year through Wednesday, the date of the bankruptcy filing, according to court documents. That compares with revenues of $342,000 and $395,000, respectively, in the full years of 2022 and 2021.

Electric-vehicle parts supplier Proterra filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, making it the latest company to go belly up in an industry grappling with supply chain constraints, slowing demand and a funding drought, Reuters reported. The move comes weeks after Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale after failing to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Foxconn. Proterra, whose shares nearly halved in value after the bell, listed its assets and liabilities in the range of $500 million to $1 billion. The company had a market value of $362 million as of last close. In January 2021, Proterra was valued at $1.6 billion, including debt, in a merger deal with a blank-check firm. Proterra, which makes electric buses as well as battery packs, said it intends to continue to operate in the ordinary course of business. It plans to file the customary motions with the bankruptcy court to use existing capital to fund operations. The company earlier this year announced plans for more job cuts and said it will combine electric bus and battery production in South Carolina as it looks to trim costs.

Surge Transportation, a digital freight brokerage founded in 2016 by Omar Singh and based in Jacksonville, Fla., has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, FreightWaves.com reported. Sixteen of its top 20 creditors are factoring companies that pay small carriers. Officials at Surge told FreightWaves.com that the company is working with a financial sponsor and hopes to get its bankruptcy plan approved at a hearing this week. Over the past seven years, Surge grew to a workforce of more than 100 people and earned gross revenues of approximately $150 million in 2022. The bootstrapped 3PL built automated load-matching and pricing technology similar to its venture-funded competitors Uber Freight and Convoy and offered a suite of direct integrations into transportation management systems. Since the beginning of last year, the freight market has experienced a significant downturn. The fading of pandemic-era stimulus programs cooled the goods economy, and when combined with the abundant capacity that had built up, sent transportation prices through the floor.

Williams Industrial Services Group filed for chapter 11 protection in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Saturday, according to court documents, Reuters reported. The company listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $50 million to $100 million, per the filings.

A Memphis-based restaurant group filed for chapter 11 protection last Friday, according to federal bankruptcy court records, LocalMemphis.com reported. Holiday Ham Holdings, LLC, the parent company of Memphis-based restaurants Pimento's and Holiday Deli & Ham Co., filed for bankruptcy with the West Tennessee Bankruptcy Court Friday, July 7, with more than $3.2 million in debt, according to court records. While the group, which owns four different restaurants around Memphis between the two brands, has not said whether the move will affect restaurants or jobs, they will not be required to sell their assets to debt collectors, according to the terms of chapter 11 bankruptcy. Holiday Deli & Ham Co. began operations in Tennessee in July, 2015, and opened their first restaurant shortly thereafter.

A marketing firm in Raleigh, N.C., has filed for chapter 11 protection — a circumstance its attorney blames on rising wages, the Triangle Business Journal reported. Direct Marketing Group, which also goes by its initials, DMG, filed for bankruptcy reorganization on July 7. The company bills itself as developing digital marketing strategies for its clients. It was founded by Ryan Fuller, formerly a retail operations manager for Hendrick Automotive Group. The company's attorney, Danny Bradford, said a big part of the firm’s cash flow problems are tied to rising labor costs. Higher costs caused DMG to incur expensive short-term loans — and payments have impaired cash flow. As a result, the firm has to streamline its operations and reduce personnel, he said. “The reality is that higher wages are here to stay,” Bradford said, adding that DMG hopes to use software in order to increase productivity for the employees it’s retaining. DMG is not alone. Philip Sasser, a bankruptcy attorney in Cary who is not connected to DMG's case, said wage and labor issues have been a major driver of why business owners are reaching out to his firm about possible bankruptcies.

Stacks, a three-decade old Burlingame, Calif., breakfast spot with three other locations around the Bay Area, recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. But owner and co-founder Geoffrey Swenson said the business will continue to operate as usual, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Per the June 30 filing in the Northern District of California U.S. bankruptcy Court, the restaurant reported liabilities of more than $1.6 million, a majority of the claims disputed from lawsuits and a partially secured lien. Burlingame was the first location for Stacks, which entered 2020 with five locations around the Bay Area but closed its San Francisco spot in Hayes Valley shortly after shutdown orders were issued for the pandemic. Swenson said yesterday that the bankruptcy filing was a result of losing two restaurants to the pandemic — the San Francisco and the Menlo Park Stacks, the latter sold to a franchisor in 2021 — and that the chapter 11 reorganization is a means to “meet our obligations.” “The business won’t be impacted,” Swenson said. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been.” Swenson and friend Tom Duffy opened the original Burlingame Stacks at 361 California Dr. in 1992, offering comfort breakfast food in ample proportions with pancakes as the star of the show. The restaurant grew over the years to five locations by 2020: San Francisco, Menlo Park, Campbell, Redwood City and Burlingame. The Redwood City and Campbell restaurants had been franchised to Jessica “Yari” Nuñez prior to the pandemic, and Nuñez acquired the longtime Menlo Park spot (open since 2002) in 2021. After the longtime San Francisco outpost in Hayes Valley (501 Hayes St.) shuttered after 13 years in mid-2020, it was taken over by the Hat Trick Hospitality Team — behind The Brixton and Rambler — to become New American restaurant and cocktail bar Hazie's.