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Thursday 20 October 2016

UP Investments follows the Crowdcube record of failure - but this one is special!


UP Investments raised £137k on Crowdcube in 2014. They were supposed to be the go to place for crowdfunding.


The company is now to be handed over to White Label Crowdfunding Ltd on a straight share for share deal. UP have stated that their shares are worthless and holders should make negligible value claims - thereby somehow alleviating the fact that this deal wipes out any EIS or SEIS claims (past present or future) that shareholders could make against their UP shares. Claimants already holding rebates will have those deducted from their NVC according to the company.

The founder of UP seems to have carved himself a position with this new company having wracked up losses with UP of over £700k. The founder claims that they failed to raise enough capital. According to their accounts they have raised considerably more capital than their Crowdcube plans showed and have made considerably higher losses.

White Label have no track record, a sole director and little in the way of capital. So what they bring to the party is not entirely clear.

If you shine a light from the right direction you could see this as an exit - its in line with the last one from Crowdcube with Wool and the Gang. Pretty sure Darren Westlake wont be taking questions about this today at Crowdfest- it will be a month at least before he realises yet another one of his successes has gone west.

Hello FCA, can you read?

4 comments:

  1. Think it's about time you shine the light on Sarah Woodward of Ecco Recordings ltd. She has set up a second business which essentially holds a different rooster of talents including Wildwood Kiln. The business proposition that she sold on Crowdcube was that Ecco would be hiring new talents (presumably like Wildwood) with Shareholder funds to bolster their current rooster 'These Reigning Days' - since then there has been complete Radio Silence from Mrs Woodward (never answering emails) and no new talent. The accounts don't look pretty but she should have at least had the decency to update shareholders that she has other 'side projects'/ new businesses. Sham.

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    1. In response she has told us that TRD have been relaunched and are doing well and that the plan stated new bands would be added when profits from the old ones allowed. Agree its doesnt look great but she did respond!

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    2. Ah that's nice of her - I last heard from her in December 2014.

      The problem is, this kind of behaviour from Directors (lack of updates) causes a chasm of distrust between 'us' and 'them'. Why on earth you'd p**s on the hand that feeds you is beyond me. It's all well and good when the money flows but I expect that a "Please sir, can I have some more..?" email will come at some point in the near future.

      Cheers anyway Rob!

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  2. I can clear up White Label. This is a side business run by Daniel Rajkumar who also runs the P2P small player RebuildingSociety. White Label, I believe, tries to sell its home grown platform to other smaller P2P players. Clearly there is value in the tech that UP Investments have created and I would suggest that they are combining it with what White Label have.

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