HQ Trivia Co-Founder Died Of Accidental Fentanyl Overdose

SOHO, NY — Colin Kroll, the co-founder of HQ Trivia, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose, New York City’s Medical Examiner’s Office announced Tuesday.

Kroll, who founded the live game show app in 2017, was found dead in his SoHo apartment on Spring St. in mid-December.

On Tuesday, medical examiner Barbara Sampson ruled the 34-year-old entrepreneur’s overdose an accident from the combined effects of fentanyl, fluoroisobutyryl fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.

Unintentional overdoses more than doubled between 2010 and 2016 in New York City, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Though they plateaued in 2017, fentanyl overdoses made up nearly six of every 10 overdose deaths that year — up from around four in every 10 in 2016.

Fentanyl, which is sometimes found mixed with heroin or cocaine, is a type of opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine

Before launching HQ Trivia, Kroll worked for Yahoo and Jetsetter, as well as having a brief stint at Twitter where he was fired following allegations of inappropriate behavior towards women, according to the New York Times.

HQ Trivia raised $15 million in venture capital funding last year after the app rapidly went viral.

“He worked too many hours and too hard,” Kroll’s father, Alan Kroll, told the New York Times in December. “I think New York City got to him a little bit. … All of that leads to getting too much drugs or bad drugs and overdosing.”

Image credit: Isaac Brekken/Getty Images for Variety. Image caption: Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, HQ Trivia co-founders, accept an award from Lil Jon at the Variety Breakthrough of the Year Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 9, 2014.

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