Amuso Faces Liquidation

Amuso.com has suspended its cash trivia and internet bingo operations and the Company has entered into voluntary liquidation after experiencing “severe problems with software from third parties” as well as its inability to cover its financial obligations according to eGaming Review.

With special reference to the above its main shareholder and investor Mangrove Capital Partners, invested US$1.5m in August 2007 since its inception, according to the report,  “theydecideded to pull the plug on the business moving forward” and will no longer inject much needed cash into it to keep the company afloat.  Several Angel investors also bankrolled Amuso.com, unfortunately this business venture has gone down the tube for them and most hope that they will receive some of the funds they’ve invested when the company is sold.

Amuso ventured into a commercial venture, with internet gaming network vendor Cashball and Swedish technology provider Nyx Interactive in the hope of creating a gaming network integrating bingo and a casino based on the Nyx account to raise revenue and profitability.  The report also outlined that “direct consumer marketing was top of their list” in April this year, and concentrated primarily to acquire new venture capital the next summer and its primary goal was to “speed-up product development and marketing”. Unfortunately for the Company the finances have been pulled and as a result it is not in business anymore.

CEO of Amuse.com, Barak Rabinowitz reported to eGaming Review that “the envisioned profits were not yielded as we’d expected and in truth we’ve bit of more than we could chew, that’s why we decided to sell the company” and also mentioned that, “technical and software problems surfaced the moment it entered the B2C space in March this year.  This could be seen as the main reason whythe business venture failed”.

“Amuso.com had many registered players, at one stage around 200,000, unfortunately severe technical problems impacted its growth. Rabinowitz continues: Payment issues were always a problem, particularly the payments, deposit and withdrawal process.”

Rabinowitz mentioned that Amuso.com will still remain live until September ends and that players have been notified to withdraw their funds as quickly as possible.  A “facility” is created by Nyx Interactive to aid players to withdraw their cash, in the event they don’t succeed in doing so before the end of this month.

Peter Davies is appointed by Amuso.com to facilitate the task as an independent agent to sell the Company as it is. Intellectual property, assets and software would constitute part of the sale as well.

“Games included in the sale such as The Weakest Link, governed by commercial contracts that dissolve in these circumstances. These games will exit the market and will be on the shelf,” Rabinowitz said.

“Those who invested in this venture will receive proceeds from the sale of the assets once the creditors received their part.  High profile mediate players also had a stake in Amuso of which is AOL, Associated Newspapers, Bebo, MySpace and MTV in Europe and Heavy and Rap Basement in the US.

Executive VP for strategic business development Staffan Lindgren at Nyx Interactive mentioned to eGaming Review that Nyx is negotitaing with the liquidator to recover large amounts of cash due them and hope to own two sets of intellectual property. “A couple of stuff could be purchased by us.  The development in-house team at Amuso were top-notch and there are a couple of things that grabs our attention at this point in time.”

He also stated that he is sorry that the Company failed to deliver, because Amuso was “one of the pioneers to engage the entertainment/online gambling arena”.

Amuso does not owe its creditors much money Rabinowitz stated; since it never borrowed on credit. “In short, working capital was prolonged in order to meet working requirements and all the staff had been retrenched”.

However, Rabinowitz was not able to disclose how much finances the company lost and according to him the company was on track to break even.

Rabinowitz left his old office and started a new one.  He said he will focus primarily on new innovative ideas in future to reach mainstream audiences for gambling products.