Troubled data company WANdisco is looking to raise an emergency $30m (£24m) in equity fundraising to avoid collapse this summer.
As of April 30, WANdisco had a net cash balance of $8.1m with no debt facilities, which its board believes would only keep the firm afloat until mid-July unless external funding is found.
In a filing, WANdisco said the fundraise would aim to “build balance sheet strength”.
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 previously reported.
The development came just days after it was reported that WANdisco is exploring the option of moving to a New York listing.
With the appointment of Ken Lever as interim chairman, Stephen Kelly – former Tech Nation chair – as interim CEO and Ijoma Maluza as interim CFO, WANdisco’s board has commenced what it calls a “deep transformation recovery programme”. This includes workstreams to cover aspects ranging from sales and marketing to the company’s governance and control environment. It has also moved to cut global headcount by 30%.
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 on 9 March. On completion of the fundraise, I believe that the company can have a bright future.”
Founded in 2005, WANdisco operates in the big data space. The company specialises in distributed computing.
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