Bengaluru, April 2 -- In the dying days of 2024, Bench Accounting, a Canadian software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup that offered accounting and tax reporting services to small and medium-sized businesses, went belly up.

Given its high-profile backers, the shutdown came as a shock. Over the years Bench had raised $113 million from various investors, including marquee names such as Shopify, Bain Capital Ventures, and Altos Ventures.

The abrupt shutdown left thousands of small and medium businesses that used Bench's software in the lurch, with their accounting and tax documents stuck. Hours earlier, its website had boasted that the company had over 35,000 small business customers in the US alone.

Fortunately for the company's clientele (an...