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Rooftop tent company 4×4 Colorado files bankruptcy, blaming tariffs for closure

4×4 Colorado has collapsed.

The Lakewood-based rooftop tent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Wednesday, court documents show.

The company, founded by Blaine Koker-Tatalovich and Josh Frakes-Belair, announced it would close at the end of last month on social media. The company’s revenue declined sharply this year, filings show, with $1.3 million in sales as of the filing date. Last year, the company reported revenue of $3.6 million, up from $2.1 million in 2023.

Its rooftop tents sold for around $3,000 each, its since-deleted website said in the spring. They featured a skylight window.

“The timing of the tariff increases on Chinese imports coincided with one of our largest-ever waves of orders,” the company wrote in an Oct. 27 Instagram post. “At a 130% cost increase, those orders became financially impossible to fulfill without jeopardizing our customers. … Our sales dropped from over a hundred tents per month to single digits.”

4×4 Colorado also tried to sell itself this summer, according to a since-deleted listing. Neither the co-founders nor their attorney responded to requests for comment from BusinessDen.

The company will begin the formal liquidation process with $421,368 in assets and $1.3 million in liabilities, according to bankruptcy filings.

The business’ biggest creditors include e-commerce giant Shopify, owed $500,000, and small-business lenders WebBank and Libertas Funding, owed $280,000 and $256,000, respectively.

4×4 Colorado listed $225,000 worth of inventory and supplies relating to its tents. It also said it has a 36-foot-long Wells Cargo Trailer worth $98,000.

The LLC the company does business under was formed in October 2021. It has a showroom at 1315 N. Lamar St. in Lakewood with two years left on its lease, documents show.

Koker-Tatalovich owns 51% of the company, filings show. Frakes-Belair owns 32.25% and Adrian Paraschiv, who is listed as a silent investor, owns 16.75%.

According to a 9News story when 4×4 announced its closure, several customers who had shelled out thousands of dollars for the rooftop tents have still not received the product or a refund. They made those purchases months and, in some cases, nearly a year ago, they told the TV station.

The company’s list of creditors includes a line titled “Refunds for Customers,” with the amount owed as “unknown.”

“(4×4) has lost access to database with creditor names,” the company wrote in its filing. “(4×4) will be conducting [an] … examination of Shopify immediately after filing in order to obtain a full copy of such information to provide notice.”

Read more from our partner, BusinessDen.

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