Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
They’ve have had six funding rounds raising USD 5.1 Million over the past few years and next week, Pavegen will announce that they’ve secured institutional investment from Tamar Capital and the Hinduja Group (with 2018 revenues of USD 50bn, the Hinduja Group has expertise across energy, urban infrastructure and technology in India and the rest of Asia) yet still they are emailing friends and family asking them to take part in another equity crowdfunding campaign.
Laurence Kembal-Cook, CEO and Founder, Pavegen Systems Ltd said in the email “I’d like to invite you to join us on this vital next step in the journey. Click .. for a private link to our Crowdcube investment page where you can find our [sic] more and invest before the pitch goes public”.
Having first seen the company a few years ago when judging the Ocean Outdoor creative competition (a proposal never actually created to power a digital billboard using human energy and Pavegen technology to promote the Toyota Hybrid) we like the business idea and have written often (they featured in two double page spreads in our London and New York Digital Signage Week Newspapers) about Pavegen’s people-powered technology, which basically generates energy and data from footsteps.
However, these folks have a high burn rate and hardly any revenue. Laurence himself admits that the company has a small team and that cashflow has been extremely tight, often waiting for up to six months for payment from clients and that he “often doesn’t take a pay check as they have no funds”.
We have to say that this latest crowdfunding campaign all seems a little suspect, if not downright desperate – especially if proper institutional investors are coming on board in the next week or so.
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