AN eco-friendly Highland construction business that raised cash via a peer-to-peer lending site has gone into administration with the loss of 40 jobs.
Carbon Dynamic, which specialised in the design and manufacture of low-energy pre-fabricated homes and commercial buildings, appointed KPMG restructuring experts Blair Nimmo and Geoff Jacobs after running into cashflow problems.
The business, which was founded in 2012 and was expecting to turn over in the region of £6 million in the year to May 2019, previously received grant and loan funding from Royal Bank of Scotland-backed Scottish Edge as well as a £1.2 million grant from government agency Innovate UK.
Two years ago it raised £87,000 from 51 investors on the Crowd2Fund peer-to-peer lending site, with investors promised an interest rate of nine per cent over three years.
In June the firm secured £400,000 of backing from Centrica Innovations, a business incubator set up by energy company Centrica.
The company was close to completing a project for the construction of 78 buildings.
Mr Nimmo said that, while all but two of Carbon Dynamic’s 42-strong workforce have been laid off, the intention is to try to find a buyer that could complete the work.
“Unfortunately, Carbon Dynamic was unable to continue trading in light of challenging conditions and significant cashflow difficulties,” the administrator said.
“We are rapidly exploring the possibility of securing a sale of the company’s business and assets.”
The assets being sold by the administrators include the firm’s intellectual property, partially finished buildings, order and customer books, and stock.
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