Metigy forecast $135M ARR on $61K of sales — the would-be unicorn imploded

Metigy was raising $50M at a $1B valuation as recently as March 2022, telling investors its annual recurring revenue would reach $135M by year-end. In August 2022 the administrators' report put its actual sales at about $61,000 for the prior year and $17,299 the year before that. After a whistleblower contacted an investor, investors asked for administrators, whom sole director David Fairfull agreed to in late July; Cathro & Partners allege the business traded insolvent for at least nine months, and creditors voted to liquidate so deeper investigations could proceed.

The money had been leaving: in November 2021 Fairfull allegedly signed an agreement as both borrower and lender to move $7.7M from Metigy to his private company — the transfer happened two days before the agreement's date. The Fairfulls settled a $10.5M Mosman mansion on November 16 and a $7.7M Kangaroo Valley estate in December. Regal Funds Management, the largest investor, which had once trumpeted a deal done entirely over Zoom, is now suing the Fairfulls and Fairfull Holdings to have a trustee sell both properties.

The pitch deck claimed FY2020 revenue of $4.9M, forecasts of $76.8M for 2022, and $8M ARR already in hand. Some of it unravelled on a phone call: Optus said a 2019 'reseller partnership' traced back to Metigy attending a start-up networking day, and co-working firm JustCo said it 'did not conclude any partnership agreement'. Fairfull — a fan of Alan Bond 'before the gloss came off' — was bankrupt from 2006 to 2009 after an ATO dispute and had three earlier directorships liquidated; his solicitors have since told administrators he is likely to enter bankruptcy.

Creditors owed more than $20M, 75 staff jobs gone, and Regal Funds Management suing Fairfull to sell two luxury properties bought with a $7.7M company loan.

Headline metrics ran thousands of times ahead of actual sales, yet the 2020-21 raises kept flowing in the cheap-money window when deals closed in five days.

The founder loaned company money to his own private vehicle as sole director — and the money moved before the loan paper was dated.

Diligence skipped the public record: the bankruptcy and the three liquidated directorships were sitting in AFSA filings.

Announced partnerships did not hold up when reporters called the partners, and freelancers had gone unpaid for months back in 2020.

Growth numbers no diligence can verify are a debt, not a story — and the founder's own bankruptcy record is the cheapest background check available.

About $3M of the $7.7M loan was repaid before administration, and Fairfull has been co-operating with Cathro & Partners, but the property loans are in default and Regal wants a trustee appointed to sell the houses. Former staff told the Herald they had believed in the product; the company's never-used Surry Hills office — rented for nine months at $60,000 a month — sat empty.