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Drone Kickstarter company that raised R50 million shuts down

Earlier this year UK company Torquing Group started a Kickstarter campaign for its nano drone, the ZANO. After raising a record-breaking (for Europe) £2 million (R50 million), the company only delivered a fraction of its drones and is going into voluntary liquidation. 

Early backers could pay as little as £139 (R3 000) to get their hands on a ZANO, which was promised to be shipped in June of this year to anywhere in the world.

To date only 600 of the ordered 15 000 drones have made it to backers.

In a message sent to those backers, the company claims that it made the decision to go into q after seeking professional advice.

It’s not like this news wasn’t expected; when the BBC visited the company in August, the drone was wrought with problems. Then, earlier this month, the CEO left the company.

Unlike a similar Kickstarter company (Pirate3D raised R18 million and found it impossible to ship its intended product) there are currently no plans to refund backers or get them the promised product or a replacement. Pirate3D has promised it will ship a different product, which falls within Kickstarter’s terms of service:

If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers.

As with all these crowd-funded projects, putting money into something doesn’t mean a product or service will ever see the light of day or be provided to those who forked out the money. Keep this in mind if you ever consider funding a new project.

[Source – Ars Technica]

 

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