Failed Sarah Ferguson-backed app took £1m taxpayers’ money

A way of life app backed by Sarah Ferguson acquired greater than £1m of taxpayers’ cash however collapsed with out ever launching a product, in accordance with paperwork filed this week.vVoosh was based by Manuel Fernandez, an in depth good friend of Ms Ferguson, who as soon as described herself as an “ambassador” for the corporate and was an investor.It promised to present customers “the ability to Discover, Plan, Share, Reside, and Bear in mind all of the stuff you like to do – and people you are but to attempt.”Ms Ferguson and Mr Fernandez didn’t reply to requests for remark.vVoosh was put into administration final month – and its failure will elevate additional questions concerning the judgement of the previous duchess and the enterprise relationships she pursued.Over time the corporate raised roughly £9m, together with greater than £1m from the UK authorities via analysis and improvement tax credit, in accordance with paperwork filed by the administrator.It paid groups within the UK after which India to work on the app, however by no means launched it, and so had no revenue to fund additional improvement.Progress on the app stopped when the Indian contractor threatened authorized motion.The administrator’s report describes a “breakdown in communication between the present administrators/main collectors and the founder [Mr Fernandez], who ceased communication following [his] resignation as a director earlier within the yr”.The report says that the corporate is owed £324,609 by a former director. That is believed to be Mr Fernandez, who’s the one director to depart the corporate since 2019.Final summer season he offered his home in North London for £1.3m, in accordance with Land Registry paperwork, and is believed to have left the UK.In the meantime, vVoosh owes £50,000 to one among Ms Ferguson’s corporations, La Luna Investments, which additionally held slightly below 1% of the corporate’s shares.Paperwork present the agency had greater than 60 different small shareholders – many with addresses in Essex and London, although a number of American addresses additionally seem.The directors mentioned that there was “important uncertainty” over how a lot cash the corporate’s collectors would get again as soon as the corporate was wound up.One of many agency’s American backers, Mark Guzy, has put greater than £400,000 into the corporate to protect “sure important providers” and shield the worth of its software program platform, which is the corporate’s foremost remaining asset.vVoosh initially supposed to share 10% of its income with a charitable basis.The BBC understands that the Charity Fee has now begun the method of eradicating vVoosh Charitable Basis from the register of charities, on the idea that it doesn’t function.It’s greater than four-and-a-half years overdue with its reporting. HMRC declined to reply to questions concerning the tax credit. Mr Guzy and the opposite administrators of vVoosh declined to remark.Earlier this month Mr Fernandez denied taking cash out of the agency, in accordance with the Occasions.He advised the newspaper that allegation can be “disproven in the middle of authorized proceedings”.Ms Ferguson, 66, misplaced her duchess title when her former husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, relinquished use of his Duke of York title over his hyperlinks with Epstein. He has since been stripped of the title of prince as nicely. Final month it emerged {that a} crypto-currency mining agency had agreed to pay her as much as £1.4m for performing as a “model ambassador” – that agency additionally failed, allegedly costing buyers hundreds of thousands. Its co-founder denied misconduct and mentioned he was working to repay backers. In September, quite a lot of charities dropped her as a patron or ambassador after an e-mail from 2011 revealed that she referred to as intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein her “supreme good friend” and appeared to apologise for her public criticism of him. Mr Fernandez went to high school at Billericay in Essex, and was a soldier within the Royal Anglian Regiment, in accordance with his LinkedIn profile. He then held senior gross sales roles at quite a lot of tech corporations earlier than founding vVoosh in 2010.He was commonly photographed with the then duchess in 2015 and 2016, they usually attended Sir Bob Geldof’s wedding ceremony collectively, however she denied rumours they had been a pair, saying they had been simply “good pals”.Correction 6 December: An earlier model included monetary figures for vVoosh charitable basis, taken from the Charity Fee web site, however the charity by no means traded.