There is growing speculation that an online company, which previously claimed that high street estate agency is ‘dying’, has ceased trading.
Online estate agency Doorsteps, founded in 2016 by Akshay Ruparelia, when he was just 17, has been taken offline.
Users attempting to search www.doorsteps.co.uk will find that the website cannot be reached.
According to Companies House, the online estate agency is owned by Upside Capital Ltd (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10543118), but the firm’s founder, Ruparelia, is no longer involved with the company.
EYE reported last year that Ruperalia had resigned as a director, before registering a new company called AKR Real Estate Ltd.
The online agent, which raised more than £1m through crowdfunding, appears to have been solvent when its last accounts were published for the year to December 2020 but it is not clear what the firm’s existing financial position looks like.
Has Doorstseps.co.uk ceased operating? Hopefully the firm’s owners can shed some light on the situation.
Doorsteps founder wastes little time registering a new company
Comments (3)
Oh no, not another disruptor gone bust!
How anyone could ever think that the cheap as chips version of selling or letting a property could survive? The only winners in this merry go round are the so called directors of these companies who inevitably seem to jump ship having lined their pockets with investors gold and then pop up somewhere else with another money making scheme for themselves!
Looks like it’s all over for them. Feel sorry for the vendors (43 properties still for sale on Zoopla) many have seen £799 down the drain. They somehow survived for 6 years on investor’s money but stopped advertising on Rightmove several weeks back and was only going in one direction after that
Unfortunately, I cannot say I am surprised and aired my concerns about the business claims and model of Doorsteps when they first appeared on the scene. There is an endless revolving door of such companies claiming to “disrupt” and “revolutionise” the sector, a significant number have massive financial churn, often using crowdfunding, and then go pop! If this is true, I wonder where the £1million of “investors'” money ended up?