UK Edition
Fireworks, jazz clubs and Arsenal: The debts of ex unicorn Ve Interactive
The former tech unicorn Ve Interactive collapsed with £12.6m of unpaid bills owed to Google, HMRC and a fireworks display company.
Administration documents for the online marketing company, once valued at £1.5bn, reveal the lavish spending of its former management before it was rescued in April for just £2m.
They show how the start-up, which never made a profit, spent thousands on supplies from a fruit company, nights at jazz clubs and Arsenal Football Club. It also owed more than £40m to high net worth individuals who had loaned the company money.
A “statement of affairs” published by Ve’s administrators shows that it owed £3m to Google, believed to be for online hosting services. Almost £2.5m was owed in various taxes, including business rates, payroll and VAT.
Ve, founded by the entrepreneur David Brown, owed £3,840 to the Ronnie Scott’s club in Soho and £5,353.20 to Titanium Fireworks, whose displays include London’s famous New Year’s Eve show on the Thames.
Other invoices included £10,700 to Arsenal and £7,674.76 to Fruit for the Office Limited. It owed as much as £10m to various individual creditors. Ve was bought out by a consortium of investors and is now trying to turn a profit under new management.
It collapsed with assets of almost £60m, including £9.8m owed by an investment firm, but only the £2m its rescuers paid and £779,126 in cash was available to pay off preferred creditors.