Struggling data company WANdisco is looking to raise an emergency $30m (£24m) in equity fundraising to avoid collapse this summer.
The Sheffield-based business said in an update via RNS that it only has enough working capital to survive till the middle of July, and plans to raise fresh funds from shareholders before the end of June.
The announcement follows the fallout of WANdisco suspending its shares on the AIM London market in March after finding “potentially fraudulent irregularities” in its accounts. As a result, WANdisco said revenue for the 2022 financial year could be as low as $9m – not the $24m initially reported.
WANdisco has since appointed Ken Lever as interim chairman, former Tech Nation chair Stephen Kelly as interim CEO and Ijoma Maluza as interim CFO and commenced a “deep transformation recovery programme.”
The company has already announced plans to reduce its workforce by as much as 30 per cent in an attempt to confront its problems.
In an update on his investigation into the potentially fraudulent activity, Lever said: “Having now been in the business for some six weeks, there is no doubt in my mind that the company should have a very bright future given its differentiated technology.
“However, improvements across sales and marketing need to be made to properly take advantage of the opportunity. To do this, the business needs to be urgently properly capitalised and so today we are announcing our desire to raise $30m towards the end of June.
“Unfortunately, much of this capital requirement is a direct result of the issues that led to our announcement [to suspend trading] on 9 March. On completion of the fundraise, I believe that the company can have a bright future.”
