Airfare search startup Everbread has been placed into insolvency in the UK after a four-year run trying to make in-roads into the world of travel shopping IT.
The London-based company (TLabs here) was officially wound up with a notice to the UK's Companies House on 14 August this year and its affairs are now in the hands of accountancy firm Carter Backer Winter.
Documents state that the company's liability to creditors is estimated to be in the region of £8.7 million.
Everbread effectively had no employees at the time of the winding up of the company last week (one of the founders, Assen Vassilev, showed up in March this year as caretaker minister for economy, energy and tourism in his home country of Bulgaria).
According to a liquidation report, things started to go wrong for Everbread in 2011 during a protracted dispute with rival airfare shopping startup Vayant.
Vayant claimed copyright infringement over the base code behind Everbread's Haystack system, a case which was eventually settled out of court in Vayant's favour in November 2011.
However, investment required to push Everbread forward with its growth strategy became increasingly difficult to secure as a result of the dispute, putting operations at the company under pressure.
In late-2012, Everbread raised an undisclosed amount with EDBI, the corporate investment arm of Singapore’s 51-year old Economic Development Board, and the National Research Foundation (NRF), which is funded by Singapore’s government.
This coincided with renewed optimism from company executives, with promises of new partnerships and hopefully some kind of result from its conversations with the various global distribution systems over the years would come to fruition.
The insolvency documents state that a second tranche of this investment was due in April 2013 but did not materialise.
At this time pressure started mounting from some its creditors, including IT support product Rackspace, which was owed some £51,000 for services (this statutory demand has since been withdrawn).
It was decided in mid-July that the company should be placed into voluntary liquidation and agreement from the sole shareholder, British Virgin Islands-based Everbread Holdings Limited was sought and agreed by 14 August.
The company had a trading loss of £680,000 for the period 1 July 2012 to 14 August 2013, with sales figures showing £296,000 for the year ending June 2012 and £466,000 for the 12-month period to June 30 2011.
The company had around £30,000 in cash in the bank at time insolvency documents were filed last week.
Other creditors listed in the documents include founder Morten Lund, SITA, OAG, IATA, former employees and the UK tax collector.
Everbread Holdings is owed some £5.3 million, according to the list of monies due to creditors.
It is unclear as to what will be the fate of the famed Haystack technology after the insolvency order is completed.
Former-CEO Alexander Staun-Rechnitzer is working with the administrators CBW during this current phase and did not offer any further comment after forwarding the insolvency documents.
Lund and Vassilev did not respond when contacted this week.