Founders, early backers and banks won big in the craze for buying online retailers but investors at THG, Deliveroo and Virgin Wines lost out
From £658,989 owed to Thurrock council, to an art shop in east London left £33,804 out of pocket, to 12,000 people whose furniture never arrived, the details of the creditors who collectively lost almost £187m from the demise of sofa website Made.com are a snapshot of the pain caused by the bursting of the online retail bubble.
Made was among a flurry of stock market listings that raised billions of pounds for founders and private equity backers on the belief that the scale of the Covid-19 switch to buying online would be permanent – only to have those hopes dashed.
