Sad news from British startup Chew, which is facing a battle for survival after someone hijacked its infrastructure to illegally rebroadcast a big sports event – landing the company a big bill.
Chew helps DJs to live-stream video of their mixing sessions, but the hijack saw its monthly spend on infrastructure triple to £30k at the very point where the company was trying to raise new investment.
“My warmest new potential investor decided not to continue dialogue with me last week,” blogged Chew’s Wil Benton. “Our current investors have offered less than the outstanding invoices total and are uncomfortable investing more, given the risk level from an infrastructure point of view.”
For now, his team are having to look for work elsewhere while Benton tries to keep the lights on – and if he fails, Chew will shut down or sell up.
The community are already responding to a #savechew campaign on crowdfunding website GoFundMe – 136 people have donated nearly £6.5k towards a £12k target so far.
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