Guvera is at it again.
Here at Digital Music News, we’ve talked about beleaguered Australian music streaming startup Guvera. The company started off strong, though. They initially raised $100 million from wealthy Australian families back in 2015. Things quickly went sour, however, as the company picked up more and more debt than it could handle.
They backtracked on their promised IPO. They quickly closed up shop in Australia, promising to focus their attention on emerging markets in India, Indonesia, and the Middle East. DMN reported on the trail of debt left behind by founders Darren Herft and Claes Loberg with Australia companies.
Even worse, their touted “Indian hope” turned out to be a smokescreen. Herft and Loberg repeated the exact same mistakes in India, failing to pay Indian companies for advertising.
According to Australian newspaper The Age, history once again repeated itself. Guvera made the decision to leave their former U.S. and Latin American workers without pay. This includes failure to pay severance and entitlement plans.
Back in September, Guvera employees wrote a letter to founder Claes Loberg, begging him for a payment plan. Employees knew that things were going to be difficult. However, The Age acquired an e-mail sent to Guvera’s top brass, including chairman, Phil Quartararo. Take a look.
“When the IPO failed, we understood that in the absence of funding, hard choices would follow. While it was still a shock to be informed of the closure of our markets on June 30, we understood the economic reality facing Guvera and the decision to refocus on the most viable markets.
Claes, it is now more than three months since any of us received any monies from Guvera. No administrator has been appointed. No payment plan has been presented.”
Staff in Australia, however, did receive their final salary, and even entitlements, before the company closed their doors there.
Guvera has yet to respond to any comments from Digital Music News and The Age.
The company is still focusing their efforts, however, in India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and just recently, the United Arab Emirates. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll cite what I wrote several months ago about the company.
The impression I get from reading about this company is that the driven intention was ultimately to create a vehicle to hype up an eventual IPO and it’s the IPO that was to provide the massive payday (hundreds of millions) and that became the target to scoring riches and taking all the fabulous rewards..
But things soured and now the US and Latin American employees have been left on the lurch… and India doesn’t look so bright now either..
Is anyone surprised by this? Appalled and disgusted, yes. But, surprised??
You cannot expect BAD people to do what is right. The terminated Guvera employees in Australia got their money (i.e., severance, entitlements and superannuation contributions) because Guvera leadership had a gun to their head, in terms of the Australian Government, financial regulators and administrators. If they did not pay, it would have been lights out for good. Something, even though I was owed money, I was truly hoping for.
I still cannot believe Claes and his band of bloody pirates have not been put behind bars.
Although, there is still hope for that, as things in India have hit the skids – a mountain of debt (including employees salaries/benefits), and lingering issues with unpaid music labels and partners. Even long-time Darren Herft errand boy (and apologist), Ananya Amin (COO of India) has quit.
We can only hope that this finally spells the end to Guvera…