Boomin, the online property portal founded by the former head of Purplebricks, has called in liquidators after failing to secure new funding.
EYE was told this afternoon that Boomin has called in BK Plus, an accountancy firm, to handle its insolvency earlier today. A company spokesperson has confirmed that this is indeed the case.
Boomin was launched by Michael Bruce in an attempt to challenge established property portals, including Rightmove, Zoopla, and OnTheMarket, and the spokesperson says that he stands to lose the most money as a result of the firm’s collapse, after injecting a significant sum of his own cash into the platform to keep it operating.
Boomin attracted investment from a number of high-profile backers, including Foxtons and DN Capital, but was unable to raise about £6m of additional equity.
The Boomin spokesperson told EYE that the company’s 65 employees were notified about the plan to put it into liquidation a short while ago.
In a statement issued, Bruce said timing had “not been our friend”.
“Our move to a fee-paying, revenue-generating model from April 2022 coincided with the start of the economic slowdown and the drying up of funding.
“In line with most tech company scale-ups we overhauled our business model to reflect the new market conditions, sharpening our focus on our key differentiated products and improving efficiencies to bring forward the point where we reach breakeven and generate positive cashflow.”
The statement added: “Whilst we had a plan, support from a number of existing shareholders and a solution with a new investor the progressively worsening economic situation, combined with increasing uncertainty in the housing market has resulted in us being unable to get the necessary funding round over the line in time to enable us to continue.”
No Brucie bonus then?
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I feel like I’m allowed to have a large amount of schadenfreude, after all, the way the barrow boys acted and treated me was utterly appalling.
[Sentence removed as it breached posting rules]
BTW Jan Byers, you’re awesome sticking up for him when no one else would.
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I’m not normally a fan of “captain hindsight” comments, but…. I think we all saw this coming.
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Where is all of that enthusiastically gathered property valuation data going to now? Will the agents who worked so hard providing it be rewarded? Who owns the data? No commissery rewards likely I’m afraid
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What. a. shocker.
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I’m very sorry for the employees. This isn’t their fault and my heart goes out to them, it really does.
What I would like to see though, is all of those who jumped immediately into bed with the Bruce’s when Boomin came along and fought their corner, just after they started an online agency (PB) that did a huge amount of damage to the industry and then cut lose just before it tanked, with millions, I would like to see those people now stand up and talk about this – you shouldn’t have a platform to offer your opinion, as I t’s misguided and misinformed.
I warned many other fellow agents away from these jokers, as I’m sure others did too. I was told by ‘well-known industry experts’ that my view was short sighted and “I should forget the past” and “give the Bruce’s a chance” as they’re all about working with estate agents to create a better future…
Here we are again though. Millions of other peoples money spent AGAIN! But don’t worry, the Bruce’s will be fine with their millions 😉
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“I would like to see those people now stand up and talk about this – you shouldn’t have a platform to offer your opinion, as I t’s misguided and misinformed.”
So you want them to talk abt it but at the same time say they should not LOL
“don’t worry, the Bruce’s will be fine with their millions”
Yes they will I am sure they will not give a hoot what anyone thinks of them
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That’s fair enough, @jan-byers, I can see how that sounded contradictory – however, you’re missing the point, and instead replying with a childish snipe. If you read what I’ve said, it now makes sense for them to stand up and explain themselves., they shouldn’t have a platform apart from that, there’s no need for them to comment any further on what us agents should and shouldn’t be signing up for in the future, their misguided and frankly butt licking ways should end. As for they will be fine with their millions, yes, it was said to invoke the thoughts that they sit comfortably, whilst spending others money, never to actually be impacted when it inevitably goes belly up. Now, if you feel fine with that then great, you do you. However, I can tell from your reply here that you still very much enjoy the Bruce’s and their ways, and of course that is your choice and I respect that, but don’t bother coming back with a reply to me that ultimately makes you look a bit silly 😉
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They still have more money by ££££££££££££££££££££££££££ than anyone here
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We really are quite the little troll aren’t we Mr Jan ( I’m a developer dont you know ) Byers……………..
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My heart goes out for the 65 employees who are facing an uncertain future. If anybody needs any advice I am happy to provide it.
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Agents Together ( if it is still going!!) may be able to offer some wise advise to staff !!!! Not surprised in the slightest that this latest effort of Bruce’s has ended this way………..
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I’m gutted
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Never nice to see a company shut down.
let’s all remember what they were trying to do.
To bring down Rightmove’s unjust geo pricing and monopoly on portal monthly cost .
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Could never understand why any agency worth their salt signed up to ‘busted’ in the first place given that the whole PB campaign was built on rubbishing conventional estate agents.
Delighted that they have crashed and burned.
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Ive just told my Staff and they all said WHO are Boomin?
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Boomisery.
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I honestly hope this is the last we see of Del and Rodney’s damaging attempts to cash in on the back of other people’s data and efforts (aka “disrupt”).
PB’s short lived share price success was built on the back of allegedly illegally hired LPE’s (pending the outcome of the court case) working at their own expense (no cost risk to PB) and on the back of the tens of thousands of vendors who, knowingly or not, paid or committed to paying fees for selling their homes when no sale was ever achieved. Again, PB made its money with no risk exposure to whether a result was achieved or not.
That’s to say nothing of the disruption to chains up and down the country from deals which included PB’s conveyancers.
The founders of PB and Boomin contacted me repeatedly, through mutual clients, via my staff, via my social media channels and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
We provided a property data feed from our CRM‘a to Boomin as requested, but when we were asked to also start supplying an applicant feed, I questioned this with some clients saying “why are they asking you for your applicant data? Won’t they just be marketing other agents’ properties to your applicants?”
I wanted nothing to do with them.
In the same way that Wonga (whose founders invested in PB) wasn’t illegal when it started, the government had to change the law to protect people from the harm they were causing.
I don’t think for a moment that these guys set out to hurt anyone, they just didn’t seem to realise they were doing it.
I’ve never seen so much industry goodwill exploited by anyone and if this marks the end of their involvement in the property industry, we’ll all be the better for it.
The people at Agents Together have done wonderful things for hundreds of people. Almost all unpaid, and making the boys look good.
The kindest word I can use to describe them is disingenuous.
I sincerely wish them the best of luck in the future, I only hope it isn’t at other people’s expense.
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We really are quite the little troll aren’t we Mr Jan ( I’m a developer dont you know ) Byers……………..
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I’ve just told my staff the news and they had pretty much forgotten that we were ever on it.
I’m just glad I didn’t move over to the paying model, which they tried so hard to get me onto. I just couldn’t justify paying for a portal that didn’t deliver any leads, or committing time and effort to dealing with their SmartVals which never, ever came to anything.
I’m very sorry for the 65 or so employees that now have to look for other jobs. That’s never a nice thing, and I hope they can sort themselves out quickly.
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Maybe they can all go get their old jobs back at Purplebricks? Oh wait…….awkward
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It’s almost like it was never going to work…
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This company will self-destruct in 60mins !
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Old PIE story
Channel 4 alongside strategic investors including Foxtons and Mortgage Advice Bureau. The new investors will be part of a roughly £25m fundraising that could be extended ahead of its conclusion in the coming weeks, according to insiders.
Foxtons -how much-write down pre or post results ?
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In a statement issued, Bruce said timing had “not been our friend”, not sure they had any friends ever [Sentence removed as it breached posting rules]You live by their sword, then you die with it, when they’ve had enough, oh well next it will be Larne football club
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not good for those loosing employment. outcome no surprise. past trends… poor management of midlands estate agency, followed by PB and now Boomin!
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