How VTuber Ironmouse and Her Peers Brought Down a Company While Raising $1.25 Million For Charity In the Process
“This entire situation has broken me,” Ironmouse said in a video that went up on July 21, kicking off a chain reaction that would eventually spell the end of a VTubing agency that was considered to be one of the biggest in the growing space. “I just wanted to do something good and to give back to a community that helped me, but unfortunately, that’s not the case.”
Ironmouse is a Puerto Rican VTuber (streamers who use digital avatars) and is one of the most popular personalities on Twitch, having previously broken the site’s overall subscription record in 2024. Refered to by her fans as “Mousey” (or alternatively, “Satan”), she’s known for her classically trained singing voice, a chaotic personality that has her talking about musicals one moment and Metal Gear Rising Revengeance’s nanomachines the next, and her charity drives that have raised more than $5 million.
In the previously mentioned video, titled “Why I left VShojo,” her pastel pink avatar stands in contrast to a black background and somber tone. She accuses the VTuber talent agency VShojo, of which she was a founding member, of owing her “a significant amount of funds.” And more importantly, as she puts it, of withholding an over $500K donation she had made to the Immune Deficiency Foundation charity organization.
“I became a VTuber because I really wanted to make friends,” Ironmouse said in the video. “I was very lonely due to the fact that I have a primary immune deficiency disease called CVID. I basically have a low to non-functioning immune system, which means I get sick a lot, and it caused me to remain isolated for long periods of my life.
“The Immune Deficiency Foundation is a charity that’s near and dear to my heart,” she further explained. “When my health first started getting really bad, the Immune Deficiency Foundation helped me immensely, when I really had nowhere else to turn. I was terrified, I was lonely, I was confused… And I never want anyone else to have to go through that.” Her words would prove a death blow for VShojo, a company that allegedly not only owed money to her and her peers, but also to an organization that helps more than a quarter of a million Americans dealing with immunodeficiency diseases.
“We are grateful to Ironmouse for being a fierce advocate for the primary immunodeficiency (PI) community and the Immune Deficiency Foundation,” the organization said in a statement to Endless Mode. “Our ongoing relationship with Ironmouse is both longstanding and transparent. Each time she’s hosted a fundraising activity, she has done so with care to ensure that contributions are handled responsibly. She has been steadfast in her genuine commitment to supporting our organization and our mission and what she shared about the Immune Deficiency Foundation in her video is accurate.” Later, Jorey Berry, the president and CEO of the group, further defended Ironmouse’s character in a statement on their YouTube page.
Within two days of Ironmouse putting out her statement, numerous VShojo talents revealed that they were also owed substantial amounts from the agency. Out of the 13 talents that VShojo represented before Ironmouse’s announcement, all of them had left the company within the next three days.
Then on July 24, VShojo’s CEO, Justin “Gunrun” Ignacio, posted that the company was going to be shutting down, effective immediately. “VShojo has failed, and I’ve mismanaged the company into the situation you’re all witnessing,” his statement posted on July 24 reads. “I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point.” He goes on to allege that the business failed to generate the revenue it needed to sustain its business model.
As for where the $500K donation went, he doesn’t address it directly, only stating, “I acknowledge that some of the money spent by the company was raised in connection with talent activity, which I later learned was intended for a charitable initiative. At the time, we were working hard to raise additional investment capital to cover our costs, and I firmly believed, based on the information available to us, that we would be able to do so and cover all expenses. We were unsuccessful in our fundraising efforts.” Since then, many online have pointed out that Ignacio liked a Tweet where Ludwig, another content creator, praises Ironmouse for donating half of the funds raised from her recent subathon to charity. This is the money that VShojo was supposed to donate, and that Ignacio claims he later learned was for charity.
VShojo was founded on November 24, 2020, by Ignacio, a founding member of Twitch, alongside Phillip “MowtenDoo” Fortunat and Daniel “Apek” Sanders. It differed from many other VTuber agencies because it allowed its talents to maintain the rights to their characters, models, and assets even after leaving the group, letting them keep their identity even if their contract lapsed. Compared to other prominent organizations like Hololive or Nisanji, where the company owns all of these and creators need to start from scratch if they leave, it seemed like a good deal on the outside. The company’s tagline reads: “A talent first VTuber company.”
“Talent first, my ass,” former VShojo talent Kson said during a stream as she interviewed the CEO of the company’s Japanese branch, Koshi “loutlot” Makino. Kson would later explain that she was owed a substantial sum, “like a Ferrari amount of money,” and that she had been planning on leaving even before Ironmouse came forward. Responding to Ignacio’s statement, Kson wrote on Twitter, “Why didn’t you let us know the moment you realized this situation? Why did I get the information 2 weeks ago not from the company but from my home girls?? Why did you lie to the JP branch A WEEK AGO that everything was good and taken care of?????”
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