Blippar's CEO was too emotional to speak during an internal crisis meeting, and furious insiders are terrified the firm won't survive the week

Ambarish Mitra Blippar

Blippar CEO Ambarish Mitra held a crisis meeting with staff on Monday about the firm's imminent risk of collapse.
According to one person who attended the meeting, Mitra was too emotional to finish his speech, and new Chief Operating Officer Libby Penn had to finish on his behalf.
Blippar confirmed on Monday that it was close to administration — similar to bankruptcy in the US — thanks to one investor blocking an emergency fundraiser from another backer.
In a terse email to staff on Wednesday, Mitra said the situation remains deadlocked.
Multiple sources told Business Insider that employees are furious with Blippar's leadership and are worried they won't be paid before Christmas if the firm collapses.
It's a dramatic fall from grace for the much-hyped augmented-reality startup, which two years ago said it was worth $1.5 billion.

Blippar CEO Ambarish Mitra held an emotional internal meeting with employees on Monday, warning them that the company is perilously close to collapse as it desperately tries to raise new cash.

It's a dramatic fall from grace for the much-hyped augmented-reality startup, which two years ago said it was worth $1.5 billion. Mitra seemed resigned to failure, according to one insider.

The source said Mitra was too emotional to finish his speech and had to hand over to the firm's new chief operating officer, Libby Penn, to finish. Penn said Blippar's status remains uncertain as an investor dispute stands in the way of it raising the finances it needs to survive.

The source, who is not authorized to speak to the media, told Business Insider that the mood inside Blippar was "very low" and that employees were convinced the company would shutter in the next 48 hours. Employees are nervous they aren't going to be paid before Christmas and angry at how little they have been told, the person said.

Blippar's latest company accounts, dated March 2017, show that the firm employed 261 staff members across its UK, US, Singapore, and New Delhi offices. LinkedIn data indicates the current figure is closer to 125 employees.

Mitra sent a terse, company-wide update on Wednesday morning stating that Blippar had not yet found a resolution. In the email seen by BI, he said: "No further info to share at the moment. We are still trying everything we can to find a resolution."

Blippar said on Monday that it is trying to complete emergency fundraising after one of its backers, Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional, last week blocked a cash injection from another shareholder, property tycoon Nick Candy.

According to The Sunday Times, Blippar Chairman David Currie warned shareholders that the firm was on the brink of administration — similar to corporate bankruptcy in the US — if it didn't receive the funding. Accounting firm David Rubin and Partners has reportedly been lined up as the administrator.

Former Blippar loyalists say the firm is a 'complete mess'

Blippar was founded in the UK in 2011 by Mitra, Omar Tayeb, Jessica Butcher and Steve Spencer, and is best known for its augmented-reality app that identifies real-world objects.

Mitra told The Financial Times in 2015 after turning down an acquisition offer that Blippar was worth $1.5 billion, which appeared to put the company firmly among the ranks of British unicorns. The firm has raised $150 million to date from backers including Khazanah, Candy, Lansdowne, and Qualcomm Ventures.

But Blippar sources cast doubt on the company's numbers and financial status in April 2017, telling Business Insider that the firm was close to running out of money.

Former Blippar employees, some of whom held longtime senior positions, described the company to Business Insider as a "complete mess" this week.

One former senior employee with knowledge of Blippar's finances said: "I am not surprised by the latest news. Complete mess." Another former senior employee said, "I'm surprised they've lasted this long."

A third said the company had an "overblown self-belief" thanks to its onetime status as a first mover in augmented reality. "Some people will try anything to keep a dead dog alive," the person said of the company's attempts to raise new funding.

Blippar founders Ambarish Mitra

Outside the company, the industry prognosis is gloomy. One well-placed source working in computer vision said the firm wasn't known for its technical prowess, despite specializing in the complex field of augmented reality.

"Strong computer-vision candidates who went for interview there were a bit shocked at how lacking in knowledge their interviewers were," the person said.

Sources told Business Insider that Blippar tried to sell itself towards the end of last year as the extent of its financial woes became clear. It tried to sell to Snapchat owner Snap and German software firm SAP for considerably less than its unicorn valuation, with an internally rumored price tag of about $200 million (£160 million). When those talks fell through, Blippar shuttered its Silicon Valley office and lost its US commercial chief in the process.

Now the company is relying on further funding from its existing backers.

Blippar did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Here's what it told TechCrunch on Monday:

The rate of change in the AR industry resulted in a lack of standardisation across platforms and tools which has become a barrier to greater adoption and application of the technology. In response to these we refined our strategy to primarily focus on our SaaS self-service AR creation and publishing platform and we are on the path to accelerate the developments of this platform. Our goal is to unify and standardise all AR formats and make it easy for everybody to create AR.

Our strategy and product roadmap to enable this goal has unanimous approval from our board, for which we require an additional amount of funding to accelerate our growth and fulfill our profitability plans. The additional funding has been secured and approved by the whole board, but ultimately requires shareholders’ approval, which was given by all except one.

Despite not participating in any further funding of the business, that shareholder took the decision to vote against the additional funding. We tried to reach an agreement with them that would allow the business to continue with these plans and have offered various solutions, and so far they have refused all proposals.

Our board is still trying to negotiate with them and we hope to have a reasonable position at some point this week.

If you work at Blippar and would like to talk or have information about its current situation, email sghosh@businessinsider.com.

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