Hotly-tipped London startup Yubl has collapsed into administration
One of London's most hotly-tipped startups, Yubl, has collapsed into administration with the loss of more than 50 jobs, Morning Wire understands.
In August Morning Wire reported the social messaging app was aiming to raise up to £20m in venture capital as it eyed a move into Europe.
The company, which has been tipped as the "UK's answer to Snapchat" and claims 150,000 active monthly users lets its millennial users create posts that can be interacted with, with one feature allowing groups to suggest dinner locations.
The app borrows elements from the likes of Instagram, Whatsapp and Snapchat, allowing users to post images, messages and maps either publicly or in groups.
“We cherry pick different functions, make them better and put them in one place," said Gareth Evans, Yubl's chief executive.
Yubl, an abbreviated form of "your bubble", added that it wanted to roll out to 30 European countries in several different languages.
In May the app, whose offices were in Bloomsbury, claimed fourth position in Apple's app store rankings, ahead of Skype, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Periscope. Today it was still available on the app store.
Yubl could not be reached for comment – but Business Insider reported that chief executive Gareth Evans had said:
I’ve been privileged to work with a brilliant group of people and am so sorry they have been impacted by this, as well as the shareholders who have stuck by us. I am so disappointed we failed to secure sufficient funding to give us the runway to achieve what we all believed Yubl could do and, although we came agonisingly close, it just eluded us in the end.