Smartphone cover maker goes bankrupt after raising million euros with crowdfunding
Popslate, the maker of iPhone cases with a built-in screen, has filed for bankruptcy. According to the company, this is because there are no more financial resources and it is not possible to get the Popslate 2 case certified for the iPhone.
Popslate made the announcement on the Indiegogo page for the Popslate 2 case, which raised about $1.1 million last year. Due to the filed for bankruptcy, people who have invested money in the project do not receive their cases. They also do not get their money back. Initially it was intended that the Popslate 2, an iPhone case with a built-in screen and battery, would be delivered in July last year, but this was postponed each time.
The announcement is striking, as the company posted an update to its Indiegogo page a month ago, showing a working model of the Popslate 2. However, it was already reported in previous updates that the procedures to get the case certified by Apple for use on the iPhone caused financial problems. The delivery of the Popslate 2 has been delayed several times for that reason.
In its latest update, Popslate stated that the problem was probably in the material used; the case is built with a special kind of fiberglass, mixed with plastic, and this interferes with wireless signals. It would probably take several more rounds of testing to get a mix of plastic and fiberglass that wouldn’t cause reception problems, and Popslate doesn’t have the money for that, nor has it been able to raise funding from outside companies here.
Popslate said it was disappointed with the outcome, but said it had taken all possible avenues to still deliver the product. The company seems to have miscalculated the financial resources needed to get the product on the market; the Popslate 2 raised more than ten times the money the company had asked for during its funding campaign.
In 2015 we did manage to bring an iPhone case with a screen onto the market; the Popslate 1. With the successor, the company tried to remove some criticisms and to make the whole thing thinner. The screen is of the e-ink type and is capable of displaying content from various applications. The Popslate 2 can also be used, for example, to show notifications, while the iPhone screen remains off. The screen size is 4.3″ in the case for the iPhone 6 and 6S, while that for the iPhone 6 Plus and 6S Plus comes out at 4.7″.