An AI-powered market analysis agency backed by The Guardian’s writer and as soon as valued at $200m has collapsed, triggering dozens of job losses.
Sky Information has learnt that Streetbees, which has counted Unilever and Vodafone amongst its purchasers, fell into administration on Monday after last-ditch efforts to discover a purchaser proved unsuccessful.
The skilled companies agency FRP Advisory has been appointed as administrator.
Streetbees, which has additionally labored with Heineken, Ferrero and Avon, raised tens of tens of millions of kilos in funding from blue-chip backers.
It landed a $40m Sequence B funding spherical from traders together with Lakestar, LocalGlobe and GMG Ventures – the early-stage funding arm of Guardian Media Group – in 2020.
That funding spherical reportedly valued the corporate at $200m.
Responding to an enquiry from Sky Information, a spokesperson for Streetbees stated: “Streetbees confirms that it has now entered administration after exhaustive efforts to safe extra funding have proved unsuccessful.
“Regardless of robust curiosity from a number of events, we had been unable to conclude a transaction that would offer the required capital to proceed operations.
“Streetbees, which pioneered human intelligence gathering by its modern platform, had seen robust traction with its new AI-first product SBX.
“Nevertheless, the legacy challenges of the enterprise, compounded by present market situations, created obstacles they’ve been unable to beat.
“Sadly, all workers will probably be made redundant.”