VShojo, the vtuber agency that was called out in a video on Monday by Ironmouse—who is arguably the biggest vtuber on Twitch—for failing to pay her “a significant amount of funds” and withholding a $515,000 donation to charity, is shutting down.
After hearing her story, almost every other vtuber who was part of VShojo decided to leave as well, which included popular streamers like Kson, Projekt Melody, and Henya.
With its reputation in shambles and memes about its apparent death all over X, VShojo CEO Justin “Gunrun” Ignacio posted a statement today admitting that he royally screwed up.
“VShojo has failed, and I’ve mismanaged the company into the situation you’re all witnessing,” he wrote on X. “So today I am sharing the difficult news that VShojo is shutting down, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point.”
Ignacio says despite raising “around $11 million” to run VShojo, it never made enough revenue to support the cost of, well, running a talent agency. Paying creators, investing in onboarding new ones, planning concerts and events, and paying staff emptied the bank and forced him to spend the “past few months” looking for ways to keep it afloat.
While focused on securing “additional investment capital” last year, the company spent some of the $515,000 raised by Ironmouse’s 30-day “subathon” stream for the Immune Deficiency Foundation—which was so popular she broke the record for the most subscriptions on Twitch. Ignacio says he “later learned” that it was intended for charity and “firmly believed” VShojo would be able to make up the money once outside funding came through, but that those efforts were unsuccessful.
The statement doesn’t indicate if any of the charity funds are left and if any of it will be donated as originally intended.
“I am deeply sorry to all the talents, staff, friends, and community members who believed in our brand. You did not deserve this,” he wrote.
Ignacio’s statement doesn’t acknowledge the reports of VShojo also failing to pay artists and vtubers who hadn’t publicly announced their affiliation with the agency. X users have also found evidence that Ignacio retweeted posts about Ironmouse’s fundraising stream on his personal account, which suggests he did know about the money she raised before spending it.
The statement also doesn’t mention anything about paying any of the former VShojo vtubers the money they’ve allegedly been owed for months, and in one case an entire year.
Ironmouse, who has been open about her rare immune disorder and personal connection to the Immune Deficiency Foundation, started another fundraising campaign to make up for what was lost by VShojo. So far, it has managed to raise over $1.2 million, more than doubling the amount from before.
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