As reported on April 20 by Prolific North, a U.K. local news outlet, Bidooh’s co-founders, Abdul Alim and Shahzad Mughal, were accused of creating a clone of their own company and selling Bidooh’s products to third parties. This was likely done to avoid sharing revenue with other Bidooh shareholders.
The co-founders of Bidooh, a British digital advertising firm, admitted to stealing intellectual property from their own company with the intention of selling it to third-parties. The firm created facial analytics software for use in advertisement, after ending a $3 million initial coin offering, or ICO, in 2018.
In August 2019, Bidooh’s staff discovered suspicious activity from a website named Flydooh, which they believed was using stolen intellectual property from Bidooh.
In September 2019, Bidooh obtained an interim order that granted its representatives the right to seize evidence they found at the co-founders’ premises.
Examination of the evidence uncovered that the pair began executing their fraud several months prior. They engaged with existing Bidooh partners and clients in order to sell through the cloned company.
Allegedly, they also exchanged a series of offensive messages against other Bidooh stakeholders and employees.
Once the evidence was presented, the pair appears to have deemed further court disputes futile and admitted to all claims against them.
Tenuous crypto connection
Bidooh launched its own token in October 2018, after conducting an ICO that collected about $3 million.
As captured by ICOBench, the promotional pitch heavily relied on the credentials of Michael Edelson, a non-executive director of Manchester United F.C.
The tokens sold by the company were supposed to be used to reward users for watching ads, a model similar to projects like Basic Attention Token (BAT).
While the ICO itself was relatively successful, the DOOH token was never listed in any centralized exchange.
The current Bidooh website makes no mention of either the token or blockchain technology in any form.
A post published in January on Reddit claims that the project’s silence was caused by the legal proceedings against the two co-founders. The announcement stressed that there was “no misappropriation of funds in the business.”
Cointelegraph sent out inquiries for more information regarding the fate of the token, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Bankera Launches Bank Account Alternative Focused on Crypto Businesses
Bankera, an ambitious project to build a neobank for the digital era, has started to offer payment accounts to individual and business clients as a low-cost, fast and convenient alternative to traditional bank accounts. Individual and business clients who sign up to the service can already enjoy dedicated European IBAN accounts to send and receive funds via SEPA and SWIFT transfers. All clients can send and receive funds from cryptocurrency exchanges.
The entire remote account opening process takes place online and can be completed quickly from the comfort of one’s home. While the platform was designed to ensure seamless user experience, Bankera’s service features live support agents who can be contacted around the clock.
Essentially, Bankera is focused on providing payment services to people and companies involved in crypto businesses and sees it as a growing but underserved niche due to its novelty and unique specifics which are not well understood by more conservative institutions. At Bankera, clients are welcome to receive funds from cryptocurrency exchanges, mining pools, affiliate programs or income from their commercial online activity.
“Having started a digital business back in 2013, we have seen that payment solutions offered for new types of online business, such as cryptocurrency, affiliate or digital marketing businesses and their clients are very limited and usually offered by small niche players, who do not last long. We wanted to build a payment service provider, which we, our clients and partners could trust and be sure that it is here to stay. Hence, we see Bankera as a natural growth and a vertical integration to our digital businesses, as well as an opportunity to upsell our existing clients with fiat payment options.” Vytautas Karalevičius, the co-founder of Bankera, explained.
Up next in Bankera’s plans is to roll out virtual and physical debit cards for personal and later corporate customers. Linked directly to the online banking platform, they will enable clients to pay at points-of-sale online and offline and withdraw cash at ATMs around the world, as well as track their spending.
In addition to the currently available web version, Bankera is working on releasing its service in the app form as well. Payment acquiring services, multi-currency support, instant transfers are among other features in the plans.
