Lady Gaga’s Startup Backplane, Which Hosted Littlemonsters.com, Has Gone To The Tech Graveyard

Remember the onset of the Born This Way era in 2011, when Lady Gaga had just racked up her third chart-topping single and her reign seemed Teflon-coated? That’s when the Grammy-winning diva launched fan site littlemonsters.com through Backplane, a tech startup that has now gone belly-up.

According to Tech Crunch, Backplane suffered from both “fundraising at too high of valuations with exploitative terms in party rounds where no investor takes responsibility” and “trouble caused when lavish lifestyles drive up burn rates and bleed companies dry.” Within five years, the startup chewed its way through $19 million in venture capital cash and has now gone bust.

Tech Crunch has been told that Backplane defaulted on loan obligations to lenders, and its assets, including patents, software, code, office equipment, trademarks, URLs and other intellectual property, have been sold to investors who now have plans to reboot the concept of the company. Backplane has since rebranded itself as place.xyz.

“The system continues to operate and efforts are under way to continue business operation and release a number of new apps,” says the company’s new CEO Scott Harrison. “Partners like Gaga and others will become paying clients and not simply strategic partnerships.”

Paws up, anyone?

Should Lady Gaga just stick to music and keep her monster paws out of Silicon Valley? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter!