Albion Tea trading as Brew packs it in and closes down losing Crowdcube investors another £180k

Brew raised £180k in September 2015. It opened its only unit for just 5 months and has taken until now to be closed down. And you wonder why the failure rate is so low.  Brew was a shambles if you are going to be generous. 

Brew has the doubtful honour of being Crowdcube's first 2019 failure. Well actually it closed over a year ago but if directors do not take their responsibilities seriously and leave it up to HMRC to clear up their mess, then this all takes time. No doubt the directors will be making up some success story for their Linkedin page. 

Yet more evidence that investors in Equity Crowdfunding need our new service ECF Buzz - you can take a look at it here  - it will be the one stop website for all the information you need to make better informed investment decisions and hopefully avoid this type of mess. 

Anyone for a Brew - Crowdcube success fails to file accounts and open new outlets

The Tea Brew Pub took £180k off Crowdcube members back in 2015. The promise was to have 10 units open in four years and then franchise. The pot is looking pretty empty.

Holland, the founder, cant even manage to get a simple set of small company accounts together for the filing which was due in March of this year. That is really totally unacceptable and unprofessional. It is indicative of sort of trash Crowdcube promote - daily. 

Failing to open any units bar its first, is not great news for investors after 3 years but it's not the end of the world if there are good reasons. Failing to carry out your duties as a founding director of the company is simply unforgivable when you have taken people's money.   

Yet another Crowdcube moment. 

Brew the Tea Pub - Yet another bloody stupid idea funded via Crowdcube goes bust.

We mentioned Brew recently - they said they had closed for 'refurbishment'. This was a lie. Funded  via Crowdcube in 2015 this is a typical result for the platform. All the cash spent, no functioning body left. Closure. Founder excuses. Nothing from the platform.

How many times do we have to see this before someone gets the idea - Crowdcube promote anything using everything. Crowdcube pitch projections showed 3 years of profit 2016/17/18 YE June. They have made only increasingly large losses. No accounts for 2017 have been filed. 

In his email to SHs, the founder Alex Holland, goes on about his virtuous efforts to reassign the lease and how none of this was his fault as even Jamie Oliver is struggling. In denial, seems a polite way to put it. He even has the cheek to suggest that the landlord is being unreasonable - wanting his rent. Finally he asks investors to lend him £20k. 

Alex described himself on Crowdcube as 'Entrepreneur and leader of teams, founder of the Social Enterprise which saved Brixton Market from demolition.' 

I applaud all entrepreneurs for having a go - god knows it is what I have been doing since 1985. But I really dont applaud making up stuff so that your pitch on Crowdcube gets funded using tax breaks. Then you achieve didly squat. Meanwhile in your hopeless efforts, you catch a whole load of innocent creditors in the crossfire. Many of these agreed to trade with you when you told them you had raised £180k on CC.

As it turns out, Alex has not yet managed to get investors their EIS certificates - this from the man who is a leader of teams etc etc. We dont let people drive here without a license - but we do let them screw up other peoples' businesses. 

Where did the £180k go? Assuming this outfit managed to sell a few cups of tea and the shopfit was no more than £20k? They talk of trade creditors and have an o/s rent balance of £20k. 

Come on - we can do better than this surely??