SHOCKER!! Crowdcube outdo themselves with collapse of Myshowcase.

We can hardly believe this story. Just 12 months after raising £1m from Crowdcube investors, Myshowcase is closing down.

Here's how Crowdcube promoted the business in January 2017 -

• Experienced team with proven track record of business exits
• Over £2.75m equity raised to date, investors include 24Haymarket
• Named one of The Sunday Times’ Top 15 fastest growing startups in 2015
• #2 best online beauty retailer by The Independent, 2014

Crowdcube included them in their list of alumni who have cracked the £1m raise ceiling just two weeks ago! Looks like this has now fallen in ...............

https://www.crowdcube.com/explore/2017/12/18/the-1m-club-where-are-they-now

The CEO Nancy Cruikshank (typo?), can be seen and heard allover the internet in her role as the ultimate guru for female entrepreneurs. Lets hope most of then do not take after you Nancy.

Here is the final email sent to investors -

Regrettably, we announce that MyShowcase will close at the end of January 2018. MyShowcase is solvent so we will be able to pay everybody and will leave no debts at all upon closure.

Since we took our first order on May 29, 2012, over 47,000 customers have benefitted from our personalised beauty shopping service. Over the years we have been recognised by our peers for our innovation and achievements, including being voted the #2 best online beauty retailer in 2014 by The Independent, listed in The Sunday Times' Top 15 Start-Up Fast Track 2015 and winning the 2016 Excellence ("best company") Award from the UK Direct Sales Association. In 2017 we successfully launched the Genie, an online personalised beauty service and Beauty Elite, the best beauty loyalty programme in the UK.

Despite all this, we have been unable to achieve the necessary growth to build a profitable and therefore, sustainable business. We have been unable to raise additional funds to develop a direct to consumer business, to complement our Stylist business.

We are all very sad but we are also proud of what we have achieved, together. We would like to very sincerely thank our loyal customers, our hard-working Stylists, our wonderful Brand Partners, our devoted HQ team and our supportive investors. We couldn't have achieved so much and come this far without all of you. We wish we could have gone further, but time is not on our side.

All three of MyShowcase's Founders have invested money into MyShowcase and nearly 6 years of our lives. We fought hard to make MyShowcase a success. We are sincerely sorry that we must now agree with our Board that it's time to close the business, as it is neither profitable and sustainable or able to raise a further round of funding to go forward. If you have any questions, please feel free to email Nancy, CEO, at nancy@myshowcase.com.

With a heavy heart,
Nancy, Rodrigo & Olivier
Founders

Our Conclusion - maybe a con or maybe the management were/are complete air heads or this CC round was a last desperate attempt (we have seen this before) but no one told investors that. Not possible otherwise. Not clear if the 'no debts' statement includes you CC investors - seems unlikely though as if they had that sort of spare cash (£4m total equity finance) why would they be giving up. Nice to know your support is so valued.

We were just putting together a rather long and sorry list of all the Crowdcube funded companies with recent accounts who have failed to get close to their projections, when this bombshell landed. List on the way shortly. 

As if this farce wasnt enough, Crowdcube have yet again been caught with their pants down. They claimed to have raised over £1m for Myshowcase but the filings at CH show that the CC nominee account is for just £280k not £1m. Come on FCA, you must do something to stop these bandits.

Reports of the death of Myshowcase have been greatly exaggerated - apparently.

In a complete reversal, Myshowcase CEO Nancy, has now told shareholders the company has been sold in such a way as to protect their EIS status.

Hats off to Nancy. The deal she has done is with Miroma, who were an existing investor. How the deal is structured is not clear - certainly from Nancy's explanation. But according to her, Miroma will own all of the stock of Mychowcase and then apportion 12.5% of the enlarged Miroma to existing CC shareholders. Hmmm - how does that work again?

Questions asked of Crowdcube get the usual reply  - go ask Nancy. 

She also claims that 'as the bargain has been done at arms length' the EIS status will be intact. Right.

Miroma Group is a dormant company but is part of a chain of Miroma companies. Miroma International as the email indicates has a £100m turnover with £2.5m net profits. It's picking up a bargain but what is not clear is what Myshowcase investors have picked up.

So we imagine CC shareholders will end up with 12.5% of the empty Miroma Group - up until now owned by the Miroma CEO and as we said, dormant. Is this essentially a phoenix where the old Myshowcase will be able to off load irritating creditors? Miroma are paying a nominal amount to purchase 100% of Myshowcase. We'd expect to see Nancy taking a seat at the Miroma Group table shortly. 

Anyway it has to be better than her last email which simply stated the company was closing and would cease trading at the end of January.  Or maybe not?

Myshowcase raised £1m a year ago on CC.

Thanks to all those who emailed this in to us.

Myshowcase's final crash

Our recent report of the give away of Crowdcube funded MyShowcase to Miroma Group has now been confirmed. A communication from Crowdcube, who are the nominee account holders in this mess, states either agree to this or the business will close. And you have 4 days to take legal advice and decide. 

Investors in MyShowcase via Crowdcube will get 12.5% of the new Myshowcase, whereas they bought 13.7% via Crowdcube for £1m. These new shares have no rights. Miroma will get all the MyShowcase shares for nothing. Miroma have recently signed an agreement with Reach4Entertainmant in the US which may help the business.  

As usual, the poor investors that believed in Crowdcube, have been royally hung out to dry whilst Nancy and her cronies have been rescued from a sunken ship; at their expense. Whilst the communication goes on to say that this is unlikely to effect investors EIS reliefs - as the deal is at 'arms length', we feel these are rather short arms. Given the fact that the founding CEO of Miroma was a major investor in MyShowcase. In fact if you were really cynical you might think this was all a set up.

We know the FCA are hopeless but are they really that stupid?

Where will it end? Crowdcube congratulate bereaved shareholders in MyShowcase.

Myshowcase raised £1m on Crowdcube not long ago and has now been 'sold' to another company for a large loss to investors. So Crowdcube thought it would be good idea to send a cheerful message to the Wake; ignoring the death.  We have written about this company here. It seems there is just one button for outgoing news on the Crowdcube control panel - its the marked ''Congratulations''. The outcome of the investment seems to be irrelevant - which when you think about it, is spot on. We love the references to EIS and SEIS - DUH.  Here is the message -  Congratulations! Your investment in MyShowcase has been completed and your ownership statement is now available.

On behalf of Crowdcube and the team at MyShowcase, thank you for supporting this business on Crowdcube. If you are eligible for SEIS and EIS tax relief (which will depend on the Company being eligible and your individual circumstances) you can expect to receive your tax relief form within 8-12 weeks of your certificate being sent. Please ................. and note that the availability of tax relief may change in future.

Best wishes, The Crowdcube Team Time for Bed  - too much good news is so tiring.

Finally the truth about the My Showcase Crowdcube debacle

Crowdcube investors have lost the lot - £1m invested in Myshowcase in January 2017. But to add salt to the gaping wounds, Myshowcase has not closed, it has been given (sold) to Miroma. Crowdcube shareholders now own a tenth of their original number of shares -each valued at £0.0001. Or as the company has now agreed  - nothing.

It is a shambles. Shareholders cannot claim their loss relief and are now locked into a newco they didnt invest in. We have written about it here

Crowdcube have remained silent on the issue even when pestered with emails from SHs wanting to know what is going on. As we reported before, Crowdcube decided to mark this disaster by sending shareholders a 'congratulations' email, celebrating their new holding in the newco. Yes they actually did that. Killing you with a smile.

Come on Bryony at Crowdcube - cant you at least be honest enough with your customers to admit this is one of your largest clusterfucks and just say sorry. 

It will no doubt not go down in the Crowdcube PRing cupboard as a failure but an exit. Probably one of their better ones. 

Thanks to SHs for the information - without it we cant attempt to hold Crowdcube to account for the mess they are creating.