A United Kingdom startup company that set a $3.4 million European Kickstarter crowdfunding record for its mini drone has gone bankrupt. The company has folded after shipping 4 percent of the Zano units ordered, following the CEO recently leaving the company reportedly due to health issues and big disagreements.
The company sent a statement to its backers on November 18, Wednesday informing them of the bad news. Its co-founder Ivan Reedman left the Torquing Group earlier this month, according to ArsTechnica.
Torquing ended the Kickstarter campaign for its handheld drone in January 2015. It raked in a record $3.4 million in less than two months.
Since then the company broke its promise to start shipping in July 2015. It also failed to demonstrate the drone in flight to BBC.
Meanwhile, the company's website looks like it is offline. In addition, it has made no Twitter posts for several days.
The Torquing Group has only shipped out 600 drones ordered. Customers purchased over 15,000 units.
An unofficial Zano Facebook group shared that the company's investors should not expect to get an iota of a refund. It explained that liquidators and then creditors would be paid first.
Jim Roberts is an unhappy customer who donated hundreds of dollars for a Zano mini-drone, but never received one. He has launched a petition on change.org to demand full refunds from Torquing, according to Newsweek.
Kickstarter spokesman David Gallagher claimed that the crowdfunding site is not legally responsible for projects not being completed. He explained the site is a new way people work together to build things.
Here is the Zano Kickstarter campaign video: