Crash and burn: how Huboo came undone

The "shining light of UK tech" that was bought for £9 after £118m investment

Hello Rainmakers,

This is a sad story, and it’s probably just the first chapter of a painful epitaph.

How did start-up ecommerce business Huboo go from a nine figure fund raise, to a £9 sale?

Yes, that’s not a typo. £9. Nine quid. The price of a glass of wine in a nice West Country pub.

But, maybe there can be a happy ending. Alex Turner has the details.

Once in a lifetime…

"Never in my career in VC have I seen an investment opportunity with the scale prospects of Huboo," said Ada Ventures partner, and Huboo director, Matt Penneycard.

It is December 2023, and the ecommerce fulfilment company had just raised another £29m, in an equity and debt funding round featuring HSBC and Blackrock, alongside follow-on investments from Ada Ventures and Maersk Growth.

Huboo’s total fundraising in its first six years had now gone into nine figures.

One year later, on December 23, 2024 - right at the end of the Christmas delivery period - the Bristol-based company appointed administrators and a pre-pack deal went through.

The new owners paid £9.

For the price of a glass of wine, an investor consortium led by Baaj Capital and Atalla Capital, had taken over a company employing 643 people in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Spain.

To get to that stage, it had been funded by £118m of equity and £20m of secured debt. And it had run out of money, and options.