The San Bernardino, Calif. warehouse of edgy online retailer Dolls Kill Inc. will lay off its workforce and close.
The Dolls Kill layoffs were in a notification sent to the California Employment Development Department earlier this month. The filing detailed 156 layoffs at the facility, which are effective April 3.
The San Francisco company, which was founded in 2012 by Shoddy Lynn and CEO Bobby Farahi, is backed by $61.6 million. Its most recent raise was a Series B announced in late 2019. The $40 million round was led by Sequoia Capital, which calls the retailer a “global fashion brand championing radically unapologetic self-expression.”
The pandemic may have stalled the company’s growth plans immediately following the capital injection, but it bounced back last August with its first brick-and-mortar store in New York City on Howard Street in SoHo.
“After navigating a pandemic alongside us, our customers are ready to return to ‘real life,’ Farahi said at the time of the Howard Street opening. “We believe there’s significant pent-up demand for in-person touchpoints with the brand, and we’re excited and ready to deliver.”
The 10,000-square-foot space features three floors and was called by the company the start of its retail expansion.
The company followed up that door with the opening in December of a Brooklyn store on Grand Street.
Dolls Kill now counts three stores. A third store on Fairfax Avenue, opened in 2018. The space totals 6,000 square feet.
The company’s first ever store, which was located in San Francisco’s Haight neighborhood, closed in 2020.
The born-online brand has often been likened to Hot Topic, with a tag line proclaiming to cater to the “misfits and miss legits” and a product assortment influenced by dance music, raves, punk and pop culture. It even counts Hot Topic’s former CEO Betsy McLaughlin as a member of its board. McLaughlin also sits on a number of other fashion companies’ boards, including Good American, Everlane and Mejuri.
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