Is everybody commenting here someone who actually invested money or just being smart.
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This sucks. No one should ever have to “learn this lesson.” I think there should be more accountability to the consumer and through kickstarter. Yall really aren’t getting your money back? That seems wild.
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Responsibility has to be shared : I don’t know why KS don’t ask any analysis of the company account to assess the financial health of the companies. This may have help to identify risks - and potentially allowing 2 parallel KS campaigns to a small company seems not responsible at all from the crowdfunding platforms. The conclusion is that I ll steer away from any crowdfunding campaign from now on. So sad.
Wrote an email to Aodyo to wish good luck for the closure.
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I was a backer of the Loom. I tend to avoid kickstarters but their prototype seemed fairly well polished and they had existing products so the risk did not seem so high. Unfortunately things did not work out, and I will likely never back another Kickstarter again. These situations are bad for all involved - the manufacturers, the crowdfunding platforms, and those who back the projects.
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Except nobody bought anything. They invested in something which had risks attached to any returns.
I read the terms the only time I put money into a kickstarter. I was lucky, I got something back.
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It’s not like it was a “first product” kickstarter, Aodyo already had several products on the market.
Had it been a new company, I wouldn’t have taken part.
But this one was a running company. That stopped running.
However, the risk wasn’t so obvious, I would say.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t change anything to the current situation. Just saying it was not such a wild decision to back Aodyo.
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Yes….I received one of the first Anyma phi kickstarter so I thought great I love physical modelling so omega next then also the loom…then excuse after excuse with long gaps in between….at first I thought move on monies gone but I feel robbed.
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Realistically this is the big downside of doing something as a kickstarter and there isn’t and easy way for them to just get more funds if they run through what they got from the campaign. If you were a proper investor you would be part of the conversation on what is to be done… if you want to pour in more money for a better return and getting the product out the door or if you want to cut your losses. Instead they had to turn to kickstarting another project to then push the old project, which is a terrible idea unless it works and then no one cares. Wouldn’t be surprised if stuff like the Osmose barely made it past the finish line, maybe had angle investors or what not.
Boutique electronics really have a lot to deal with when working with factories, and clearly it makes getting things to people on time really really difficult.
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If you object to us saying they stole our money, maybe it’d be more acceptable to call them lying SOBs?
When Loom was launched, they said they were so excited about the omega’s ribbon they had to share. Not that they needed the money because their (flawless, impeccable, impossible to criticize) management of their previous project had them deep in the hole.
In talking about risks, they literally say the worst case is “potential production and shipping delays” when at that point they had already had the near-death experience of DSP performance shortcomings with the Omega that necessitated the Loom in the first place.
They touted their “prototypes are already functional” and their “multi part polyphonic sound engine has undergone thorough testing” though clearly both of these were just shells considering actually implementing them is what lead to all the DSP overruns that they eventually blamed for the failure of the company.
It’s hard to look back and find any point in any of their communication with their customers that they gave an accurate account of actual progress or how behind they were.
I assume none of this was caused by malice. I assume they were just incompetent, got in over their heads, and tried to hustle their way out of it with a less-than-honest ploy only to fail spectacularly at that, too, taking our money with them.
But you know those risks everyone is suddenly pointing out are inherent in investing in a Kickstarter? There are also risks in getting investment from people and then failing to deliver. Those people get to hate you.
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It would irresponsible for them to continue asking for more money after a track record of failures to deliver, just like it would be irresponsible for people to keep giving them money time after time. It sounds like they’ve already strung backers along several times. I’m glad they stopped doing that, at least. I’ve seen examples of other projects that continue stringing along a stubborn few investors year after year with no hope in sight, so this is maybe a tiny bit better than that.
Still feel terrible for the backers and I hate that this sort of thing happens (and is extremely common in crowd funding 
)
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“Last” software update. However, the button to buy the software is now deactivated (“out of stock”).
I am not a kickstarter investor for Aodyo on any of their products, but was watching their product development in case I could buy an existing product I liked.
I am responding here only because in my previous career I was a business litigation attorney, having been involved in various sides of bankruptcies. I would be bummed if I’d been a kickstarter contributor and lost my money, for sure. So, that sucks for you guys. On the other hand, having worked with companies facing bankruptcy, it has been my experience in the vast number of cases that companies will do almost anything to avoid going into bankruptcy, especially a dissolution bankruptcy. I compare it to someone who decides they need to get a divorce from someone they very much still love, but the situation demands no other choice. In a business setting, this can also crush your career and reputation in very serious ways.
It sounds here like this company made a couple of big assumptions that didn’t pan out, including relying on parts that they couldn’t source, and had to do some re-engineering and re-sourcing at a higher price than anticipated. My very strong guess is that this has happened to many other musical instrument manufacturers over the past couple of years, but they had the resources to weather the supply chain uncertainty, and smaller companies like Aodyo did not.
Whatever the case might be, buying anything as a kickstarter investor means you are taking a huge risk that you will not see the product, and not get your money back. When that happens, it doesn’t mean your money was stolen (I guess it could if they absolutely knew the product was vapor but didn’t disclose this while taking new kickstarter funds, but that’s a very large leap). On the rare occasion that I’ve contributed to a kickstarter campaign, I do so with the full knowledge that I might never see the product, and have no expectation that I will get my money back. If I can’t live with that, I pass on the kickstarter. Not trying to diss anyone who contributed here at all, and I feel your disappointment. Only trying to add a little background based on my own experiences.
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The Loom was my 13th kickstarter….I wouldn’t feel so strongly if it happened a year into pledging but over 2 years (even took our money for shipping!)it leaves very bitter taste, honestly I feel deceived but it seems we have no redress no choice but to move on lesson learnt the hard way and I can absorb the financial loss but if I said I have no hard feelings and wished them well I’d be lying.
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I feel like you’re getting tied up in legal versus colloquial usage. Do Kickstarter projects break into my house, crack my safe, and make off with the family jewelry? Obviously not, and I don’t think anyone is suggesting they do.
On the other hand, if you were at a show, saw a demo of a cool synth, and when asking about buying it were told by the staff “it’s not in production yet, but we’re getting together people who want to pay for one in advance to fund making it” and were assured “we have everything we need to make it happen, you just saw the unit we’re making so you know it’s real, we have an impressive track record of delivering this kind of instruments, we’re not going charge you anything unless we get everything we say we need to move forward, we’ll give you this receipt to pick it up the end of the year, and in the worst case will deliver it late…”
Well, if that person emailed you two years later and said “money’s gone lol”, you might feel as though you’ve been taken advantage of whether they literally committed larceny in the legal sense or not.
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I didn’t even get the vst
That is strange, did you contact their support about it?
I backed the Loom 3 octave version.
Lost £300+ but went in with my eyes open.
That’s the risk of crowdfunding.
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I agree. When I backed this it was largely on the strength that they had already successfully launched the Phi, and the Omega was looking great. I’d been interested in a ribbon-style controller for a while, and couldn’t really justify a Haaken, so I thought I’d take a punt on the Loom.
Live and learn I guess!
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For the record, I contacted their support yesterday evening because I couldn’t activate Anyma V, and they did reply fairly quickly (like within an hour) and helped me with activation.
(Haven’t had proper time to play with it yet, though)
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That’s fair. Like I said, my response was based on my previous career as a business litigation attorney. TBH, I don’t really know much about the kinds of guarantees given for kickstarter projects. So, if they made definite promises to you to get your money, and then broke those promises, yeah, I’d be pissed too.