Chupachipcake hits the skids and all investors are wiped out again. Three cheers for Crowdcube.

You begin to wonder how all of this is going to end. Chupamobile took £740k off 147 Crowdcube investors in 2014. By 2016 it was projecting £1.3m net profits. Nice. 

We had this one banged to rights - our current Buzz Rating on Chupamobile was 15/100 down from 20. Anything under 20 is a goner without Jesus.

We wait to see what collateral damage there is and what state the business has wound up in. I doubt it will be pretty. Tax relief is available as usual. So now Crowdcube have helped waste over £50m since they started in 2011. Knighthoods all round boys. Blasting.

What's up at Crowdcube's Chupamobile? £750k invested in 2014 and now where are they?

Sorry if we are sounding a little repetitive. We just report the facts. Chupamobile's late accounts for YE Dec17, show little activity and less cash. Trustpilot reviews for Jan 2019 suggest the service has crashed.

Chupamoble were due to file profits in the millions last year and presumably this. Well that didnt happen - we just had further losses. So these things take longer than anyone knew - give them a break! Why do you always have to shine a light on the negative? 

Recent posts for January 2019 here  suggest there is something a little more serious going on. Users are not being paid for their apps. Other reviews confirm this pattern.

They need to refinance. But who would .................. Expect a Crowdcube pitch shortly.

The CEO is an interesting guy - Stefano Argiolas - an Italian. His LI page here  makes a claim that he raised $2m for Chupamobile

'In 2012 I founded Chupamobile and grow the company from scratch to a Multimillion Dollars Company in less than 2 years. Found the most amazing angel investors and raised $2M to support our global expansion.' 

Accounts do not show this investment and the company certainly never made any millions of anything. Stefano is like the Crowdcube founders  - a marketing guy. The company book value was just over £5k at the end of December 2017. In 2014, investors paid over £3.5m for it. It is a classic Crowdcube success. There are 3 strike off notices filed at CH. 

It appears he is now in the Rome area running a new business based in Italy - https://hej.ai/, which he set up in 2017. That might explain why the reviews keep mentioning the lack of any customer service for Chupamobile.

We tried very hard to find a positive here. Maybe some loss relief would help. 

Chupamobile have just £10k left on their balance sheet, 3 years after taking £740k off Crowdcube investors

So what is Chupamobile and its 'seasoned entrepreneur' (Crowdcube's description) Stefano Argiolas, doing?

Looking at the latest accounts  - late again - not very much. YE Dec 2016 showed this company making profits of £1.3m in its Crowdcube sales pitch. It's hard to be certain, given the lean information supplied in their latest accounts, but our guess is they made a loss of £95,000.

That was over a year ago. There is no record of them raising money since. In fact their filings at CH are almost exclusively to do with moving filing dates or postponing compulsory strike offs.

£740k is a good sum of money - so where has it gone? Fixed Assets are negligible. We wrote about this company before - here .

Their website is all in $ so maybe they have ended up over there. Any shareholders with some more information , please get in touch. ROI would seem some distance away. It could be even further away if you read their reviews - I dont think I have ever seen so many people calling a business a scam  - see here

Back in 2014 when they raised the £740k on Crowdcube, they told investors that they expected to be bought out in the next '2 to 3 years'. So that would be last year. Well who the hell believes anything these companies say anyway - Crowdcube investors just throw money away because they love doing it. Just so long as they diversify their throwing - some over here and some over there. Give them a bit too. Good job guys - excellent result for GBplc.

Oh and dont forget taxpayers, via EIS, these investors will get 30% of their thrown away money back from your Government. Excellent use of public funds.

The Good the Bad and the downright Ugly

Three companies recent filings and reviews reflect the diverse nature of the Crowdcube portfolio.

First lets start with Clint - AKA Curpis Health and  also Go Henry

Curpis Health - It's a little early to be hanging out the bunting, but these guys appear to be ahead of their financial targets although they still appear to need to raise cash this year. Breaking into the NHS is a very had task, especially with the budgets stertched to breaking point but they seem to be getting there.

Go Henry - progess has been spot on and providing they can refuel their gas guzzling plan, they look set to make some serious impact in the future - when is anyone's guess. But certainly not a lemon. 

Then there is the Bad - well you can really take your pick. One we like Is Water to Go - seemingly gone or Psonar which has been liquidated.

We have reserved the Ugly for the worst set of reviews we have ever seen. This goes to Chupamobile - which took over £500k off Crowdcube punters. Here are some of the reviews - Sites vary on theor average but from the 3 we looked at, it's around 1.5 out of 5. - 

''Seriously folks, if you're reading this... They dont care. And if you doubt me at all, use your favorite search engine to find tons of other complaints just like mine. Don't fall victim to these guys. Avoid at all costs.''

''They are scammers do not use that website, dont buy or sell, if you paid for something that does not work please report here, choose internet fraud:
https://www.usa.gov/online-safety''

''After buying a source code that was far older than stated, they continued to literally patronize me. Theyre customer service is one person, who refuses to offer any real help or refunds. They say they updated code, which they didnt. Made me waste even more time, only for them to tell me politely that I'm screwed. Now I have no product that i can work with, ive wasted two weeks in trying, and I'm insulted. DO NOT DO BUSINESS. I dont care how good it may sound. I wish I would have read the reviews on this company first.''

We are not saying these reviewers are right but as business is hard enough to get going, running into a headlong gale like this makes if pretty well impossible. Accounts due out this month. 

Crowdcube investors are now contacting US for help!!!

Its is really very depressing.
3 times this week we have been contacted by shareholders in companies that funded via Crowdcube, to ask us to help them find out what is happening. 

We are of course happy to help where we can - but what the hell are Crowdcube doing? Appearing at Crowdfest to soak up the adulation of their own industry's PRing.

Today's contact came about Chupamobile - which raised £740k on Crowdcube in 2014. Ignoring what they do, what they have achieved to date is waste this money as far as we can tell. Projections showed them in profit for 2015 and making a profit of over £1m for 2016. But the reality is, as it always seems to be, that they have clocked up the losses and continue to do so. Only silently.

That aside, why is it that companies feel they can abuse the very people who funded them? Why are Crowdcube not involved in pushing companies to give a minimum of quarterly updates via email - how long would that take? Where is the bloody FCA when you need them? Stumbling through another review in which they have used the gangsters to advise on the regulation.

Things are clearly not right when a blogger from deepest Scotland is the messenger for so many shareholders. Less preening more action please Mr Williams!