Zano Kickstarter Failure Investigation Launched

about the project

Zano - a mini quadrocopter project on Kickstarter, the largest European project (in terms of the number of collected tools).
This project from the Torquing Group has successfully raised £ 2,335,119 from 12,075 backers (and I am one of the backers).

What happened?

After completing the fundraising campaign, periodic good news was sent about the promotion of the project, its development, Zano's participation in various technology exhibitions, etc.
Of course, the project did not meet the promised dates, but this, for Kickstarter projects, is quite normal and expected.

However, later, after reports that the first Zano shipments were in full swing to the backers, the following update suddenly arrived:

Dear backers,

As a result of recent events, board members have carefully studied the technical, commercial and financial viability of the Zano project.

Having examined all the possibilities we know, after consulting with professionals, we made a difficult decision about the voluntary liquidation of [the company]. An arbitration manager will contact all creditors next week .

We are very disappointed with the results of the Zano project and would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone who supported us during this difficult period, especially to our faithful employees whose work exceeded all expectations.

Thanks

Torquing Guide.

Oo

In general, you can probably imagine a stream of indignation from 12 thousand people who paid not very little money.

And already at the last stage, when you expect the tracking code of the parcel, they saw a bankruptcy message instead ...

According to reports of those who managed to get drones, they really could not fly: they took off poorly, did not stay in the air, etc.
Moreover, it turned out that the first drones were not received by the backers, but by those who pre-ordered on the Zano website after the completion of the project on Kickstarter.

And how everything looked good ...


After several messages from, apparently, that same “arbitration manager” and from Kickstarter itself, one more message came last night (December 8, 2015): Kickstarter said that he had hired a journalist to conduct an investigation of what had happened.

Dear Zano Beckers:

You are writing today to inform you that we hired Mark Harris , a technology-related freelance journalist who wrote for The Guardian and The Economist to find out what happened to the Zano project.

We asked Mark to look at the history of the project, how the collected funds were spent and whether there were any things that could have been done differently. Here he wrote a post about this hiring.

It will be an independent report - Kickstarter will not have any influence on what he writes. After completing his research (about the next month), the results will first be sent to you and then published in the public domain. We believe that a full report of what happened will be useful to you and the entire community of developers of glands.

We encourage you to collaborate with Mark about this project. We encouraged the founders of the Zano project to do the same. Mark created a special email for this project: zano@meharris.com. He says that although he cannot answer all the messages, he will read them and is looking forward to receiving messages from the backers.

Thanks
Kickstarter

What's next?

If it is interesting to anyone else besides me, then I will try to write a translation of the very investigation when it appears. This same Mark Harris writes that the results are likely to be in mid-January.