Sprinkles Cupcakes is closing, cofounder Candace Nelson said on Wednesday.
Nelson started the American cupcake brand in 2005 with her husband. The couple sold it to private-equity firm KarpReilly in 2012.
“This isn’t how I thought the story would go. I thought Sprinkles would keep growing and be around forever. I thought it was going to be my legacy,” Nelson said in a video on Wednesday.
Nelson said the company’s locations were closing on Wednesday: “Just to say that out loud is completely surreal.”
The company had 21 stores in seven states, according to its site, which did not indicate any closures. Sprinkles pioneered the “cupcake ATM” in 2012, selling cupcakes through a machine. The company had 25 such dispensaries in airports, malls, and other locations.
The company has over 1,000 employees, according to Nelson’s LinkedIn profile.
After Nelson sold Sprinkles, she went on to cofound pizza company Pizzana and CN2 Ventures, a family office that invests in startups. In 2022, she wrote a book for entrepreneurs about turning business ideas into profitable companies, based on her experience with Sprinkles.
On LinkedIn, Nelson said she had “no ownership or operational involvement” with Sprinkles.
Neither Sprinkles nor its private-equity owner, KarpReilly, responded to Business Insider’s requests for comment.
It’s unclear if KarpReilly sold the business or is winding it down. The firm removed Sprinkles from its online holdings list in the fourth quarter, according to an archived version of its website.
Connecticut-based KarpReilly’s food and beverage investments include Wilde Chips, the ice cream company Salt and Straw, and the fast-food chicken company Starbird.
Sprinkles was one of the last holdouts of the 2000s cupcake boom, along with Georgetown Cupcakes, which has two physical locations.
A few have rebooted, including Crumbs, which closed in 2016 after expanding aggressively as a public company. The husband-and-wife cofounders, who sold half their stake in 2008, bought the rights to Crumbs in 2022 and made it a delivery-only business.
