$56 Million Later Akimbo Is No More

Colorful San Mateo based startup Akimbo has finally shut its doors $39.7 million later, according to a report at VentureBeat.

Akimbo initially starting as a VOD integrated hardware and content provider, then became an internet only solution that offered a software interface for Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition, and as of February this year (and with another $8 million in a bank) tried to reinvent itself again as a white label video hosting provider.

Initial investors included AT&T and Cisco, and the February round came from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and Zone Ventures.

The intriguing part is the last round in February being made despite the companies continued failures in every model it tried; what exactly was the company spinning to the VC’s? There’s no official reports yet from the company or the investors, but it should be asked whether the VC’s were deceived on the last round as something is very amiss here when the company shuts 3 months after a capital injection (and the VC’s aren’t stupid). Staff numbers for the company were reported to be only around a dozen people, so where did the money go?

Update: GigaOm and others are quoting the figure at $56 million, even more scary.