So it looks like another Company I invested in via Crowdcube has failed, got an email today informing me that ilovegorgeous has gone into administration. No reason given, and it makes it clear investors are unlikely to get anything back.
My first failure was Sugru.
Keeping my fingers crossed for Freetrade, donāt fail me!
To date I have invested in a total of 6 companies via Crowdcube, 2 down 4 to go.
Well at the time it was sold to me as celebrities were decking their kids out in ilovegorgeous clothes, and I thought ācelebs, children, middle class mommies and daddies wanting to look on trendā what could go wrong?
ā¦
I suppose kids also have a tendency to grow quicker than parents could wish, hence changing outfits every few months makes it even less viable to go for the posh options. Supposedly 
@stephen Wait, what happened to Sugru? I thought the company is still running and selling
The company was purchased by Tesa, they bought it for about Ā£7 million after the management overstretched / over promised and ended up seriously indebted - the low price meant that investors got one tenth of their investment back, 9p out of the Ā£1. Even the poor hard working staff got shafted, their options didnāt trigger and they got nothing, I have no idea if senior management got anything, itās easy to assume they all had huge payouts but to be honest I doubt they did.
So yes it still exists - as a Tesa subsidiary.
I like to think of it as a learning experience for me, donāt invest in luxury children stuff haha!
shame I didnāt know about feeetrade back then, not sure how I missed that one.
I try to look for new(ish) ideas or unique selling points. I never invest in the clothes/fashion ones or restaurants/food or similar. I realise this means missing out on some winners (Brewdog etc.) but I donāt have the ability to spot the winners before they become winners
Thatās not true - youāre in Freetrade arenāt you? 
I meant I canāt spot a winner in Fashion/clothes/food/beer, I donāt know what will make one fail and another take off. Freetrade comes under Innovative/ Unique Selling point, That looked like a winner from day one to me
What was the valuation at crowdfunding time? This suggests it might have been a bit on the high side. Itās probably lucky I didnāt see it, as the product is good and that might have tempted me
It sounds strange they sold so low when theyāve raised so much. And how they got into so much debt when their business model is simply and manufacture their own products. Like you said, learning experience though.
They were valued around the Ā£30million mark.
That in itself raised a few questions when the Ā£7million sale happened not long after the last crowd fund.
No money in the bank, directors liable(?) No buyer on the horizon, I imagine Tesa came in with the cheeky offer as they knew Sugru had little bargaining power.
Maybe some of the Sugru story is in these articles, dunno.
9 posts were merged into an existing topic: Which crowdfunding companies have you invested in?