Figure's Near-Bankruptcy Risk

Brett Adcock shares how he nearly went bankrupt personally while funding his robotics company Figure in 2022-2023.

"When I left Archer, I had basically all my money tied up in Archer stock. I had a 12-month stock lockup, so I couldn't sell the majority of my stock until April 2023. I could only sell a limited amount based on market volume.

I was selling some stock to fund Figure, and the stock went from $5-6 when I left to $1.80 by the end of last year. We were building a team of about 40 people and spending around $1 million on hardware. We had a 7-figure monthly burn rate within 6 months.

It became this full system of trying to sell stock at the limits every day, getting cash into the bank account, and putting money into Figure. This was during a recession, banks were going bankrupt, it was the worst fundraising market since the financial crisis. I even had to take out a second mortgage on my house to get through it.

I was in my Hampton group and everyone's asking about the most important thing I'm working on. I told them 'I'm running out of money, I might not make it.' I think they thought I was a maniac."