It's absolutely astonishing to me that SV investors and incubators pass along ~4 million USD to a team of people with so little business experience, as to neglect hiring an accountant. End result being unpaid payroll tax for almost 3 full years!

No one ever asked what accounting firm Amicus used? No one ever just glanced at the finances and thought hey, where's the frigging payroll tax? Is valley capital so readily available as to warrant this kind of extremely low investor engagement in funded companies?

No written founders agreement either. I mean this is basics, and it should have been caught or taught by the accelerators and the investors.

This is not a shot at the OP, who I think is exceedingly brave to write such a public, honest and informative account of their screw-ups. Competence comes from experience and everybody in business has been incompetent at some point.

Rather, this is a massive failure on the investors' and accelerators part. With all the talk of "funding the team, not the idea", you'd think there was a bit deeper understanding of team experience and competence, than just some degrees from an ivy.

It's mind blowing that investors can be so careless with their cash. I wonder if it's a common occurrence or if this is an outlier situation.