Remember Whisper, the anonymous chat app? It’s been a while since we’ve heard much from the company, but it’s still around and has recently lost a bunch of high-profile board members.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Sequoia’s Roelof Botha, Lightspeed’s Jeremy Liew and investor John Hadl all recently left their board of director positions. Shasta’s Sean Flynn, who was a board observer, also vacated his post.
The move may have been part of an effort for the startup’s founders to regain control of the company.
The once rising startup, comparable to other anonymous apps Secret and Yik Yak, which have both since died out, had been given a valuation of more than $200 million at its height in 2014, but has since struggled to turn its now 30 million users into paying customers and generate a profit.
Mobile market insights firm SensorTower estimates downloads of the Whisper app worldwide decreased by about 55 percent last quarter, compared to the second quarter of 2016.
Sequoia, which lead Whisper’s Series B round and has contributed to helping the company raise a total of $61 million, is generally proud to list its investment partners alongside their investments, but there’s no mention of an investment partner in Whisper on its site.
We’ve reached out to Whisper and several of the departed board members for more insight on the matter and will update you if and when we hear back.