I ran a US company and due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to return the country to raise an additional round of funding and the company collapsed.<p>There is currently one angel investor at $150k, some debt holders ~$10k.<p>I called the investor a year ago and said to him that I want to close down the company -- all the employees have left. We agreed that he'd try to solicit around the company to his contacts and try to get a sale.<p>I helped to pitch over the phone a once and did maintenance when here and there, and he's mentioned several people he's shown it to but never any reply.<p>I told him I was going back to school and need him to take over the AWS charges, which he did. I forgot to ask him to take over the domain fees and database charges and have been carrying them myself (student loan).<p>The company hasn't paid any taxes since its inception (I read online that I don't need to if the company is running a loss every year). I haven't filed a statement of information for a year now, and I'm effectively locked out of the country. The company bank SVB closed the company account due to inactivity.<p>The investor's lawyer did most of the paper work to get the company up and running. He has most of the documents, and I don't really know how this works. Unfortunately, I couldn't pay his last legal bill.<p>The fund holding the $10K debt has gone silent on me, and I've been afraid to bring anything up.<p>Recently AWS suspended the account due to overdue payment. I contacted the investor two weeks ago, and he said he'll take care of it. A week later I noticed it's still not fixed, so I contacted him again, asked if he was tabling things, and that if he was, perhaps I could also pause my payment on the DB (bringing it up the first time). No response for a week.<p>Anyway, what do I do here? Am I at risk for anything?
Am I correct in assuming you are not a US citizen nor do you have assets in the US? But the investor and debt holders are in the US? If all of this is true, effectively, I have a hard time imagining anyone pursuing you legally. Just too expensive.<p>There are a lot of other questions that come into play here - for example, is the angel investor a shareholder or do they have some sort of convertible security?<p>Startups go out of business all the time - the vast majority do. Your investor should know that, as should you debt holders.<p>This should be a simple process, but it seems like it's been dragged out way beyond what you should have to do with.<p>I'm a bit nervous that the investor's lawyers did your corporate documentation and you don't have it. I'm concerned that you may have been taken advantage of.<p>I would write the investor's lawyer and request copies of the documentation. He cannot withhold it because you didn't pay some legal bill.<p>If you want to take the risk, just send the investor a notice that you are quitting any position you have (director/officer/employee) of the company. And then just forget the whole thing.<p>If you want to mitigate risk, I'd find a lawyer who works with startups who can hopefully help you navigate this in a cost-efficient way.