Twelve days before Christmas 2017, Otto LLC, a company that wanted to produce smart locks, shut down with little notice. Employees were given no severance and contractors were left with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices. This incident was widely covered in the press, and one board member has since quit the venture capital industry.

Otto has sold all of their assets to a company that specializes in liquidation and is now going through an "assignment for benefit of creditors."

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but that said, here is how this works at a high level. Everyone submits their claims to the Assignee. These claims have different levels of priority; people who lent money to the company have one priority, people who are owed money for services have a different priority, people who own shares in the company have a different priority. Generally, all of the claims at one priority are paid out before proceeding to the next class.

The Assignee is required to post notice in a newspaper, that's it - they don't have a requirement to notify you personally. I found the address for submitting claims, though. If Otto owes you money, go here to submit your claim: https://fileaclaim.info/Otto-ABC. You have until November 2, 2018.

Yes, that is the real URL.

I wish you the best of luck, however, I fear that there is not very much money left to pay claims, so you might not get very much. Still, a little bit is better than nothing.

If there are any questions I can answer for you, or if there's anything I can help you do to find a new position, please get in touch.

Liked what you read? I am available for hire.