Any Backers have any Information?

I recently received an email from another backer and the news isn't promising:

"Emails to Chris sent back as non deliverable and website and forums down. Heard nothing about settlement payouts etc."

Has anyone else had better luck with any communication? This really doesn't align with the stated intent to do what he can. Will be reaching out to others to see if I can get an official on the record response.

Short Update

Hi All,
I've been busy with some research and other items so haven't had much news to post. Have not seen much public information recently either, but heard that the BrewBot.io website and forums appear to have gone down.

Anyone receive notice that they will see any recovery?

Have a safe and happy Holiday Season if I don't get a post out prior to the New Year!

"Brewbot boss vows to persevere after entering an agreement with creditors"

Anyone have a comment regarding this recent article, the Town Hall, or CVA?

I have reached out to the CEO of Beach Hut PR (a creditor) to see if he would be willing to comment here.

Brewbot Town Hall Update?

Shout out to anyone who attended the Brewbot Town Hall scheduled for yesterday.  Care to share any information? Will keep your comments autonomous if you wish. You can post in the comments or email me directly.
Thank you!

Brewbot Insolvency (CVA) - Chairman's Report

Received copies from several creditors and am posting publicly these Court minutes. Will comment in a future blog posting.  Some of the conversion from PDF to Word was less than perfect.
=======================================================

Form 1.1

Rule 1.24

The Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 Report of Meetings Approving Voluntary Arrangement Pursuant to Article 17 of the Insolven        orthern Ireland Order 1989		A.17

                                                  To the Registrar of Companies                 For official use

Com any Number

NI 615974

Name of Company

(a)   Insert full name of company         (a) Brewbot

Limited

(b)   Insert full name and          James B Kennedy

address

(c)   Insert date

Presenter^s s name, ddress and reference (if any):

of

22 Lower Windsor Avenue, Belfast BT9 7DW

the Chairman of meeüngs held in pursuance of Article 17 of the Insolvency (Northern freland) Order 1989 on (c ) enclose a copy of my report of the said meefings.

For Public Office

Official Use Liquidation Section

BREWBOT LINIITED -NI 615974

COMPANY VOLUNTARY ARRANGEMENT'S

Chairman's Report on the meeting of Creditors of Brewbot Limited.

held in accordance with Article 15(2) of the Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989.

Ih aecordance with the provisions of a proposal circulated to the creditors on 25^å September 2017 and lodged with the High Coun a meeting of Creditors of Brewbot Ltd was held on

10^d7 October 2017 at 3:00pm at the office of Ja.mes B Kennedy & Co 22 Lower

•Windsor Avenue, Belfast, BT9 7DW

The Chairman of the meeting Mr Jarnes B Kennedy, licensed Insolvency Practitioner, outlined the facts of the case and the legal background within which the meeting had been convened.

A list of those present and entitled to vote or represented by Proxy and a schedule indicating the amount of debt allowed and how they voted is as follows.

Present or Represented	Total	For	Against
Alister Sisk	1,383.00	1,383.00
Beach Hut PR	19,800.00	19,800.00
Benedict Smith	2,208.00	2,208.00
Dylan Fuller	1,500.00	1,500.00
George S Ferzli	3,645.29	3,645.29
Harland Wines	4,503.87		4,503.87
Joel Boehme	2,577.93	2,577.93
Jon Regler	2,208.00	2,208.00
Ken-y Leane	1,500.00	1,500.00
Kieran Graham	3,070.65		3,070.65
Lenalea Electronics	1,724.40
Mark Jefferson	494.70	494.70
North Down Leisure	43,415.85	43,415.85
03 Group	574.08	574.08
Philip J Hartog	2,821.63	2,821.63
Prohibition	3,200.00		3,200.00
Seimon Williams	1,600.00	1,600.00
Stephen McNamara	1,500.00	1,500.00
Techstart NI Siv1E	198,026.00	198,026.00
Total	295,753.40	284,369.33	12,498.92

The Chairman accordingly declared that the proposal had been agreed by the requisite majority of the creditors and that, subject to the outcome of the forthcoming meeting of members, James B Kennedy of James B Kennedy & C . was appointed Supervisor of the Arrangement.

James Kenned FCA c

                                   Dated:           ctober 2017

BREWBOT LTD - NI 615974

COIMPANY VOLUNTARY ARRANGEIVÆNT

Minutes of a Meeting of Creditors of Brewbot Ltd held at 22, Lower Windsor Avenue Belfast BT9 7DW on Tuesday 10^th October 2017 at 3.00pm.

PRESENT:

Harland Wines Ltd

                              Prohibition Ltd

Techstart NI SNG Equity Limited Partnership

IN ATTENDANCE

James B Kennedy

Chris McClelland

The proposal as put forward by the director was considered and accepted by the requisite majority of the creditors present and represented or entitled to vote.

The matter will now be referred to the members for their consideration.

-Mr Chris McClelland

Date: 10^th October 2017

Brewbot Townhall Scheduled

Just heard from one of our many blog, reddit, kickstarter readers. They received an email invite to a Brewbot Townhall.

Updated invitation: Brewbot Town Hall @ Thu Oct 19, 2017 5pm - 6pm (BST)

This was sent to an email list of about 23 people. What about the 100's of other backers?

Hopefully one or more of you readers were on the invite and will be attending. Please share any details regarding Brewbot and their future.



For those of us not on the list, Brewbot the bar will soon be Northern Lights as Galway Bay Brewery takes over soon.

Creditors Information

I have received copies of both the Proposal to Creditors and the Chairman's' Report regarding the Creditor meeting.

I will try to upload/paste these two documents soon and will also try to summarize some of the content.

A quick read however, does appear to show that Chris commingled funds from Brewbot the device with Brewbot the bar. While maybe not an illegal act, certainly not within the spirit of a Kickstarter campaign nor Invest NI's R&D investment.

While the business tries to sell assets, Chris remains the sole Director and is requesting a preferential claim of 8,000 GBP for unpaid wages.

How did this happen?

Surprising news from the Courts yesterday when Brewbot somehow convinced them that Brewbot is still a viable/salvageable company and negotiated a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) versus the forced wind up order from the taxman.

For those of us in the USA, this would be similar to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy where the creditors agree to a restructuring and repayment plan to avoid liquidation of the business.

I will try to dig out further details, but cannot fathom what assets Brewbot still has that would give creditors any assurances that they will receive further returns.


The news article from Belfast Telegraph is here.

Cross posted to reddit also

Oct. 12, 2017 - The final day for BrewBot?

Not surprising news since we recently reported BrewBot was being forced to wind up by the taxman.

On Thursday, a Belfast court will be hearing the case against BrewBot and will likely grant the wind up order at that time.

As reported by Belfast Telegraph: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/food-drink-hospitality/galway-brewery-taking-over-belfast-brewbot-bar-on-ormeau-road-36212433.html

"It is now unlikely that those who invested around £2,000 on the crowd-funding platform to get their own Brewbot will ever receive a machine."

Unlikely would seem to be an understatement!

I will try to follow the court case and post any relevant information (personally, I would love to see the accounting of BrewBot's operations to see where the money actually went to determine if this failure was due to Chris's incompetence, malfeasance, ignorance, criminal intent, or some other cause).

ASK: If you still have access to the BrewBot Kickstarter page, please paste a link to this blog/page over there so the other backers know now that the end is here.


And finally for today's posting:

If you wish to try to contact Chris directly, his FaceBook page looks like it is https://www.facebook.com/christophermcclelland

and his LinkedIn account is https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmcclelland/

Brewbot faces a winding-up order.

Every story has an ending and it appears that Brewbot is now in the final chapter of its life.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/food-drink-hospitality/windingup-order-against-belfast-beer-tech-firm-brewbot-36066560.html

This news is unfortunate, but should not come as a surprise to any of you who have been following Brewbot here and elsewhere. Previous posts discussed the financial situation of Brewbot and the likelihood of this happening. It is doubtful that an accounting of the funding and issues will be made public, but I will continue to follow these developments and attempt to gather as much information as possible.

It is also no surprise that: "Founder Chris McClelland told the Belfast Telegraph he did not wish to comment."

Buyer Beware - BrewBot is just one of several failed/delayed Kickstarter projects

Haven't had much to report so pardon the lack of updates.

Just checked on other Kickstarter projects and I'm seeing a significant up tick in delayed/failed projects where funding goals are met but products never ship and the firms go dark with no responses, emails, updates (sound familiar?).

One of the main differences I see is that BrewBot collected thousands from backers and most of the others are in the few hundred down to fifty dollars.

In all cases, Kickstarter hides behind their ToS claiming no foul on their part and redirect blame out to the project with no accountability and no apparent concern for these potential fraudulent projects.

Add in the international component and it becomes very difficult and costly to pursue prosecution and/or recovery. Maybe we need a good non-profit law enforcement/legal team to take up this cause. I'm sure this is not just a Kickstarter issue and likely is observed across most/all of the other crowdfunding platforms too.

Full disclosure: I have backed 12 projects on Kickstarter for a total of about $3,500 USD. Of those, I received a partial refund on BrewBot directly from Chris, successfully canceled and was refunded $100 for a failure to deliver on a project, received my product on 6 (50% fulfillment!), and am still waiting to see if I receive anything for the remainder of my backed projects although all have missed their delivery dates by over a year. I have not, and will not back any future projects via these type of funding paths.

Company Check Website

Found this: https://companycheck.co.uk/company/NI615974/BREWBOT-LTD/financials

and am considering throwing a few more dollars/pounds away and order the full report (annual fee of  £20+VAT)

Anyone have history with this Company Check firm and are the reports worth the spend?

What is Chris doing?

Recently learned of this posting:

https://jd.me/in-at-the-deep-end-ormeau-baths-a60847a0046b

It appears Chris is working on a side project with Jon Bradford, et al.

Anyone have contact information for any of these other team members? I'd love to have a chat with them about their project and what benefit/contribution Chris is bringing to that team - and if it is distracting from BrewBot's ability to deliver.

Who can connect me?

Invest NI FOI Details

As previously mentioned, I made a follow up Freedom of Information request of Invest NI. As you may recall, this organization provided R&D financial support to BrewBot.

These monies were part of a package where a total of £ 88,257 was offered in assistance of which £ 43,973.30 had been drawn down as of 2014.

While not totally clear, it appears that there were two funding sources from Invest NI; an Access NI and Techstart NI. When asked, I received the following response:

"While Techstart NI is part of Invest NI’s Access to Finance suite of funds, each fund is operated by a Funder Manager on a commercial basis, and independent of Invest NI."

 Asking about the Letter of Offer for both of these funds, I received:

"Investments decisions by Techstart NI are made by the Funder Manager on a commercial basis.  Invest NI is not involved in the funding decisions. Documentation relating to this investment by Techstart NI  cannot be disclosed for the reasons provided in Annexes 1 and 2 attached to this letter."

Reading Annex 1; they site Exemption Section 40(2): The information relates to third party personal information.  The disclosure of this information would constitute a breach of the Data Protection Principles.

and 

Section 43(2): Disclosure would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person.

Followed by:

ANNEX 2 – PUBLIC INTEREST FACTORS RE EXEMPTION 43(2)

               

Factors in the Public Interest to Disclose:

·       The public interest is served by demonstrating accountability for the use of public funds.

·       The public interest is served by transparency and openness of Invest NI’s decision making process.

Factors in maintaining the exemption and withholding the information requested:

·       There is an inherent public interest in ensuring fairness of competition and, as Brewbot and Techstart NI have legitimate economic interests in it would not be in the public interest to put them at a disadvantage in a commercially competitive market.

·       It would be unfair for the commercial interests of a third party to be undermined simply because they liaised with, and share information with, a public sector body.

Invest NI Decision

·       Having examined the above factors, it is considered that, on balance, the public interest rests in not disclosing the information being withheld under the exemption.

----------------

While I think that I could argue a pretty convincing case against their ruling on 43(2) that blocked the release of this information, as per the previous FOI no IP was owned/transferred within the terms of this agreement the commercial activities are not prejudiced. We should also consider what if/when BrewBot closes their doors? At that point, there would no long exist a "legitimate economic interest" for competition and these records should then be accessible.

Thanks for the comments and updates that you backers are posting in the comments section. It sounds like there has been little (or zero) information from BrewBot/Chris for quite awhile - which raises more questions!

As always, please continue to repost the link/blog to Kickstarter, Reddit, etc. as the more backers we can reach the greater our influence.

The quest for BrewBot Answers continues.

An offer to Chris...

As mentioned in the comments section to a previous post, this blog now is being referenced in reddit.

I'm having issues posting the raw FOI responses directly so will likely summarize and cut/paste sections into a future post.

In the interim, I just sent the following to Chris at BrewBot and will let you know if/when I hear from him.


Hi Chris,
The blog site: http://brewbotanswers.blogspot.com/ continues to get more viewers and now has been picked up by reddit.com

I'm offering you another opportunity to post an unedited posting regarding BrewBot without any editorial comment by myself on this blog.

Let me know what you would like to share.




----
Also, anyone have any luck with communicating with anyone at BrewBot? Refunds? Updates?

Is It Fraud?

As we continue to seek answers to our questions from BrewBot, I am also researching other avenues to explore from a more legal footing.

While we all know that backing a company/project on Kickstarter has significant risk, The BrewBot campaign is somewhat unique given the size of each individual investment and International customer base, press articles, and subsequent $1.5M investment in 2014.

It is one thing to submit $10-20 or even $200 for a "trinket", game, book, record, etc., that may or may not deliver but there is quite a different level of expectation when one invests several thousand. Hopefully, this has not posed a financial hardship to any of the backers, yet I am sure that every one of us backed this project with the expectation of receiving something of value. Certainly those that placed orders directly with BrewBot post-Kickstarter have even a stronger expectation of delivery.

So it is time to start looking at our situation from a broader legal framework. Being based in the US, I'll start here and expand Internationally as my research grows.

One obvious starting point for US based people is Mail and Wire Fraud.

There are three elements to mail and wire fraud:

1. Intent;
2. A "scheme or artifice to defraud" or the obtaining of property by fraud; and,
3. A mail or wire communication.

To be fraudulent, a misrepresentation must be material.

Perhaps a bit of a hurdle to prove, but after three years we certainly have a long runway to collect evidence.

Does this cover International transactions? Fortunately yes, "wire fraud has been expanded by Congress to include foreign wire communication or interstate connections via (e.g.) an e-mail server or telephone switch or radio communication."

What are your thoughts? Is there sufficient evidence of fraud?

Another update in about a week

Thanks all for your emails and comments on this blog.

Chris from brewbot has not responded to repeated emails where I offered up to post an unedited comment from him.

I'm a backer on a different project on Kickstarter (much smaller $!) that is using the same business model...
1) Take the pledges
2) Send frequent updates on progress, but limit actual content
3) Go silent for over two months on their own blog and kickstarter forum
4) Have one off emails with a few people that "we will have an update soon"

I think the crowdfunding model has a bit of a problem...

Kickstarter and BrewBot.IO Forums

For those of you with access to Kickstarter and BrewBot's own forums, I ask that you help drive traffic to this blog by adding a link to the bottom of any posts that you may make on these forums.

Continued visibility and access will be in everyone's best interests as it will help keep BrewBot's operations transparent - regardless of the outcomes.

Even though I received a partial refund, I do plan to continue to investigate and post my findings of BrewBot's operations to better understand what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and what, if anything can or should be done. I do think that a class action lawsuit is potentially warranted given the large sums and public money involved.

This will only work if we can gather many more backers.

Please help by posting: http://brewbotanswers.blogspot.com/ on your relevant posts.

Thank you.

Follow up on the refund question/process

It may take you a couple of months and some strong pressure (aka create a blog), but you too could perhaps get some/all of your funds returned. Here are the relevant emails I received from Chris regarding a refund and the long process. In my opinion, BrewBot is no longer a viable business and will be the subject of a future blog posting (tied to the FOI information I received).

After reaching out to Chris regarding BrewBot, on November 23, 2016 he replied:

Hey Ken,

Thanks for the message.

We are working on closing in on investment, but unfortunately the terms of that are confidential. Which is an awful position to be in from a communication perspective.

Brewbot is more than viable as a business, there is a mega opportunity here, however we do need production and R&D budget to do fulfill it. 

There are another couple of machines going out in the next couple of weeks. As a baseline we are getting there.

Would you like to jump on a call at some stage? more than happy to speak to you.

Thanks,

Chris

For followers of BrewBot and this blog, you will note that now four months later he is still using the same language in his communications and updates while trying to get an investment.

On December 9, 2016, after repeated requests for information and/or how a refund could be requested:

Hi Ken,

Please fill out the following form, thank you: https://docs.google.com/a/brewbot.io/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-JUNMuNhoXC9KtbsQIpt2DNDbPgcYTay6MeQrn_0qhPdviQ/viewform

Chris

After immediately filling this out and asking what the next step(s)/timeline were I received this the same day:

I'm not sure at the moment. I've contacted Kickstarter about how to do this. Because it should be done via that system.

On it will get back to you.

Chris

On December 19th:

Hi Ken,

Don't really have an update on when we can do the transfer.

Kickstarter has changed a bunch from the time we were on it. We haven't really been given a clear understanding how we to do this now. A large % per pledge is taken through charges etc. So looks like with a refund we are going to take a hit on that.

We need to reallocate/release stock etc to do a refund. Working on this for you.

Chris

My exchange later that day:

On 19 Dec 2016, at 19:39, wrote: I would like to ensure we stay on top of this and keep it a priority. When can I expect to hear an update from you? I'd prefer a response such as this, versus not hearing anything. I do not feel that this is an unreasonable request and would like this resolved by Dec. 31st. without further escalation. Do you agree?

Ken

It is treated as a priority Ken, doing all we can to get this sorted.

Will update you, asap.

Chris 

Sent from my iPhone

On December 28th I begin to feel as if BrewBot isn't going to be around in the future...

Yes, committed to processing this refund, but it's very difficult to do. 




There are a ton of reasons for this difficulty for example: we've stock that we purchased Q4 2015, Q1 2016. The pound has dropped in value twice since then thanks to Trump/Brexit. We've been trying to sell parts in bulk to other brewing suppliers in the UK but they want to buy for much less than cost price. Everything is worth a fraction of what we paid for it. We are trying to firesale it so I can get you a refund which is decreasing the value even more. 




Unfortunately I can not give you a firm date or response, I really wish I could.



Chris





On January 9, 2017 I am still being delayed:



Yes, committed to processing this refund, but it's very difficult to do. 




There are a ton of reasons for this difficulty for example: we've stock that we purchased Q4 2015, Q1 2016. The pound has dropped in value twice since then thanks to Trump/Brexit. We've been trying to sell parts in bulk to other brewing suppliers in the UK but they want to buy for much less than cost price. Everything is worth a fraction of what we paid for it. We are trying to firesale it so I can get you a refund which is decreasing the value even more. 




Unfortunately I can not give you a firm date or response, I really wish I could.



Chris



Finally, January 13, 2017 and we have his plan:



Hi Ken,



I wanted to have a personal call so you know I'm real and I'm pouring my all into this. 



Things are really tough right now but I'm not walking away. I'm going to extraordinary measures to make it right. There are many stakeholders to consider. We've raised other money from people who also stand to lose all their investment if we can't navigate to a good outcome.  It won't help any of them if you turn up the heat. 



No promises that I can pull it out of the fire but I assure you I am working through all the options as well and as quickly as I can.




Lastly, I do have progress on your refund. £290 can be transferred via PayPal today. £800 will be transferred January 24, and the final £410 January 31. I hope this is amenable, if so please send me your PayPal address.



Thanks,



Chris



Progress report, January 24, 2017 was sent in two transactions. BrewBot clearly is experiencing cash flow issues and access to funds problems:



Hi Ken,

I sent £320 just now, the rest will be sent the minute it clears.

We'd sold a few items and the money was withheld since start of last week. 

eBay said it is due to be released today. I'll send it the minute it comes through. 

Best wishes,

Chris



On February 3, 2017 I noted that while I received the GBP 1,500 it didn't match my cash outlay (due to currency exchange fluctuations) and received the following reply:

Ken,
Thanks for confirming the receipt of your requested refund.



Pledges for UK Kickstarter campaigns are in GBP. I checked with Kickstarter and £1500 is the refund amount. It means that you are no longer a backer of the project.

We remain focussed on making Brewbot a success for all our stakeholders and supporters. That means I am not able to comment on anything that could potentially threaten that success. 

Chris 







Shortly after, I was removed from the Kickstarter access to the backers forum and BrewBot's own forum has the certificate expire. I am no longer able to provide an update for you anywhere but here.