This delightfully small confection is made of liquid sugar and gelatin. But, sadly, Boomf, the company which charged £19.99 for sending a box of nine personalised marshmallows through the post, has proved equally fragile.
After eight years of hard work, James Middleton (the younger brother to the Duchess) took over management.
Last week its creditors — many of them also small businesses — were told that they face getting just 25p in the £1 of their money back.
Boomf and bust you may say.
Boomf’s well-off investors must face the hard truth that they have invested their hard earned cash in a weak commercial proposition.
Some £2.2 million was raised by Middleton and ploughed into the business, which had branched out into other postal gifts and cards.
Its accumulated losses stand at £2 million.
James Middleton, the younger brother of Duchess Of Cambridge, started the firm (pictured below with Andy Bell), and it went into administration last month.
Rather embarrassingly for Middleton, 34, who called himself the ‘Wonka in chief’ — a reference to Roald Dahl’s fictional confectionary genius Willy Wonka — shareholders include his brother-in-law James Matthews, married to his older sister Pippa.
Nick Jenkins is one example. He’s the Moonpig greetings cards mogul and former Dragons Den judge. In 2014, after having invested and it was the success Middleton had dreamed of, Jenkins became chairman.
Jenkins stated that Boomf was a personal way to wish a happy birthday, thanks you, or congratulations. You can even eat the card. This card is delicious!
Certainly, the Estonian businessman who snapped up the failing business this month for the relatively small sum of £300,000 (Middleton reckoned it was worth £10 million in an interview in 2015) will be pleased with his bargain.
Boomf will also retain the 29 employees based in Reading. The shareholders, who are sure to regret their investment, will not be so content, it seems.
Nick Jenkins is said to have put in at least £250,000, while Pippa’s husband, hedge fund manager James Matthews, invested £100,000.
Charlie Gilkes, Prince Harry’s royal friend and co-founder of the Bunga Bunga party club, was another financier. Quintessentially Ventures Ltd., which is a private investment club for high-end investors, is also a shareholder.
Middleton said that he had drawn around £2.2 million in investment in Boomf in total. Middleton stated in an interview that this isn’t a business being supported by relatives or friends.
Investors of this calibre don’t just hand out cash. They want to see us make a profit for them.
Sombre is the administrator’s proposal to buy the company. While the taxman will receive the full payment, other creditors could only get a quarter.
These include printing companies, marketing agencies and envelope providers. One of the largest, an investment company called Forward Partners, is due £350,000 and can expect to get £87,500. The company declined to comment on this week’s issue.
Some £2.2 million was raised by Middleton (pictured with wife Alizee Thevenet) and ploughed into the business, which had branched out into other postal gifts and cards.
In total, the sum of £414,000 is outstanding to creditors. Chris Goslar of Chroma, a Reading-based print company, stated that he would not discuss Boomf. He’s owed just under £5,000. Erica Ashner of the internet analytics agency Contentsquare, out of pocket to the tune of £17,661, feels the same way.
Boomf also went down with unsettled marketing debts: Facebook is a creditor to the tune of £55,000 and two separate digital marketing and analytics firms are owed a further £76,000.
This is a disappointment for the man who used to tell his friends that he wanted to become Richard Branson. Not to be overlooked, Middleton’s marshmallows proved to be a disaster.
After a rocky start — between 2013 and 2018 Boomf recorded losses of £3 million — there were some signs that its fortunes were turning around.
The firm reported a profit of £175,000 in December 2019 and a profit of £1,107,222 in accounts filed for 2020. The company did not file furlough requests during the pandemic. Additionally, draft accounts for 2020 showed that the firm made a lot of money in lockdown, since it does not depend on physical purchases.
Last year however, the cash crisis arose due to high business costs. The shareholders decided to stop spending additional funds to save it.
The administrators make a series of stark findings, among them that the company was so in thrall to marketing and advertising that it was spending £5 to attract each customer order.
‘The cost of customer acquisition had significantly increased in 2021, nearly doubling to £5 per customer,’ the administrators note. Meanwhile, the profit margin on each order was just £1.
The business was heavily seasonal — hitting a peak between February and May when people were buying for Valentine’s Day and Easter — and falling off afterwards.
The number of repeat orders was low which suggests that perhaps the product is less amazing than what the advertisements suggest.
The website’s fate was sealed by a decision of the management to reinvest all profits in its development.
Draft accounts up to December 2021, when the plug was pulled, show a turnover of £9.1 million. However the cost of sales — which includes manufacture, overheads and advertising — was punishing, standing at £4.1 million.
Taking into account ‘other expenses’ meant that Boomf made a loss of £686,000.
The administrator’s report stated that the company had exhausted all its cash resources. Its cash problems were affecting its ability to trade and it was unable to obtain additional funding from shareholders or other third parties.
Chief executive Sophie Dummer commented that Boomf was a niche brand and it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to be a separate business in an ever-competitive environment.
This is a big blow to James Middleton, who smiled gleefully at the advertising.
Middleton has three other failed businesses under his belt and still lacks the business acumen that his mother is famous for.
The contrast with Carole — who built her Party Pieces business, said to be worth £30 million, into a successful firm from her kitchen table when James, Pippa and Catherine were children — could not be more stark.
Rather embarrassingly for Middleton, 34, who called himself the ‘Wonka in chief’ — a reference to Roald Dahl’s fictional confectionary genius Willy Wonka — shareholders include his brother-in-law James Matthews, married to his older sister Pippa
James’s family, the Middletons, is known for being close knit and have supported him in his quest to succeed as a businessman.
It was uncle Gary Goldsmith — Carole’s flamboyant younger brother, a successful businessman and James’s godfather — who loaned James £11,000 to start his first business, the Cake Kit company, which aimed to provide kits for people too busy to bake.
The Nice Group was a group that took income from James’s two businesses, The Cake Kit Company, and Nice Cakes. Nice Cakes made cupcakes to sell at high-end events. The Nice Group reported consecutive losses for five years until it closed its doors in 2017. According to Companies House, the firm lost £130,179 in total.
James stated, “They didn’t fail.” When you first go into a job, you start at the bottom and work your way up — you learn.
“With Cake Kit Company I struggled scaling it up. The lessons I gained from this experience were applied at Nice Cakes. Then, you’ll find other problems. It’s impossible to fit a birthday cake into a mailbox, as cakes are delicate. That’s how they became marshmallows.
“So these companies closed down. But I did it myself, and with my head high. They taught me so many things. This is very important.
Quite what Middleton — a gentle and somewhat eccentric character who seems happiest when in the countryside with his dogs — will learn from this latest reversal of fortune is yet to be seen.
Last summer he and new wife Alizee Thevenet, a French financial analyst, moved into a £1.45 million Grade II-listed farmhouse near the £4.7 million Middleton family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire. A farmhouse is also owned by Sister Pippa.
Kate, his sister, has been helping him to decorate the first “proper” home. Together, they were seen together shopping for interior home items in Hungerford.
He spoke and wrote movingly about his struggle with depression. This he described as a ‘cancer in the mind’ that brought him to the brink.
He was also recently diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which he says explains his ‘restless’ and ‘impulsive’ character — but also his creative spark.
James does not intend to give up on his business goals. He is now concentrating on Ella & Co, the ‘happiness and wellbeing’ company for dogs which sells freeze-dried and cold-pressed raw dog food.
Companies House documents show that Middleton was the founder of Hello Ella and a shareholder. The company was established in spring 2019.
Accounts filed last year show that in the period between April 2019 and April 2020 — before it launched — it made a £170,000 loss. It is interesting to note that the company has its headquarters at Poundbury in Dorset. This village was the Prince Charles model village.
Middleton has high hopes for dog food and says your dog will have a better coat, energy, and poops in a matter of days.
This recipe uses human-grade meats, fish, and vegetables. It was inspired by the love he has for Ella, one his six cocker spaniels, who was a great help in his battle with depression.
She is his teacher, friend and therapist.
He also writes a blog on the website about being a ‘pet parent’ including ‘cycling with your dog — do’s and don’ts’ and ‘how to prepare for a holiday with your dog.’
We wish him the very best. However, it remains to see if this is the opportunity for him to leave the shadow of his future sister, the queen of the future, and to become an industrial captain himself.