Michael Bloomberg. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Hawkfish, a political data and tech agency founded by billionaire former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, is shutting down, Max Burns scooped on Friday.
Why it matters, via Axios' Sara Fischer: This was supposed to be the Democrats' answer to the GOP's 2016 advertising machine. But the agency largely wound down its efforts after Bloomberg dropped out of the Democratic primary.
- Hawkfish was the first to sound the alarm about a "red mirage" in the 2020 presidential election, describing a "potential shift in the election outcome because of the partisan increase in mail-in voting."
What they're saying: "As you know, Hawkfish was built with the goal of helping to defeat Donald Trump and electing Democrats in November 2020. ... After the election, Hawkfish’s leadership team and stakeholders started exploring potential avenues for the company’s future and concluded that Hawkfish would not continue in its current constitution," Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn said in a memo obtained by Axios.
- "The company is expected to wind down by May, providing full-time employees with a three-month window to remain at-will employees of Hawkfish."