NEW YORK — Apex Capital announced a new strategy on Tuesday. The firm is buying tech companies that have no employees left. They call these companies "zombies." Apex plans to buy 50 of them this year.

The plan is simple. They buy the company for a low price. Then they raise the monthly fees for customers who forgot to cancel. "The software still runs on a server somewhere," said Elena Rodriguez, VP of Portfolio Optimization. "Just because the founders quit three years ago doesn’t mean the billing system is broken." She noted that fixing bugs is expensive. Ignoring them is free.

Apex looks for businesses with specific traits. They want apps where users pay automatically on credit cards. "We love ‘set it and forget it’ customers," explained David Liu, Director of Legacy Revenue. "We found an AI writing tool with 5,000 paying users. The AI server actually crashed in 2023. The tool just returns blank pages now." Liu said they did not fix the server. Instead, they rebranded the blank pages as "Zen Mode." They also raised the price by $10 a month.

The firm admits there are challenges. Sometimes a customer notices the product is dead. "If someone complains, we offer them a discount," said Rodriguez. "But most people just pay the bill. It is the perfect business model." Apex fired the support team to save money. Now, support emails go straight to a trash folder.

At press time, Apex bought a calendar app that deletes all your meetings. They are marketing it as a "work-life balance" tool.

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