9th May 2018 12:54
LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in Vela Technologies PLC fell on Wednesday as it said investee THEVIBE Ltd went into administration at the end of April.
Vela shares were trading at 0.40 pence each, down 11%.
THEVIBE, which trades as Vibe Tickets, in October raised funds which resulted in pre-initial public offering technology company investor Vela holding a 5.1% stake.
This cash covered Vibe Tickets for the next six months, and it hoped to then raise another GBP1.0 million, as it is in a pre-revenue stage.
During discussions, Vela said, it became clear Vibe Tickets needed to restructure to secure interest from investors, and thus no money was raised, leading it to go into administration on Monday last week.
Since then, Vibe Tickets' former Chairman Luke Massie bought the firm from administrators. He has formed a new holding firm, Vibe Group Holdings Ltd, and Vela said it expects Vibe Group to buy 100% of Vibe Tickets and Vibe Pay in the coming weeks.
Once Vibe Tickets is again restructured, Vela expects to invest a further GBP200,000, which would give it a minority stake in the new holding company.
Executive Director Antony Laiker said: "We have supported Luke Massie and Vibe Tickets since 2016. We saw the opportunity to support a business that was both highly disruptive and would enable ordinary fans of music and sport, who were being forced to pay excess fees on top of inflated prices, to benefit from a transparent social media platform to buy and sell tickets.
"Vibe has made strong headway reaching over 84,000 users and has generated over £7m of ticket volume, all with minimal marketing spend. Vibe Tickets is doing what it set out to do - disrupting the big players."
He added: "Various financing routes for Vibe Tickets were explored. However, the corporate structure surrounding Vibe Tickets did not lend itself to securing further funding. Based on previous discussions with the management of Vibe Tickets, we anticipate that the "restructured" Vibe business will provide the platform for Vibe to engage with parties who have expressed interest in supporting and growing the business further."
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