Tech company CricHQ goes into receivership

CricHQ, a cricket app business part-owned by former Black Cap Stephen Flemming, has gone into receivership. Photo / Ross Setford

An online cricket app business whose shareholders include former Black Caps captains Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum has gone into receivership.

Receivers Brendan Gibson and Neale Jackson from Korda Mentha were appointed to CricHQ yesterday.

The business launched in 2010 as a cloud-based cricket scoring platform and expanded into competition management, administration and a scoreboard and statistics platform as well as data collection and predictive scoring.

In December former Saatchi & Saatchi executive Kevin Roberts joined the board as chairman.

Last year CricHQ was reportedly looking to raise US$10 million ($13.7m) from investors and the company put a pre-money valuation on CricHQ of US$77m. It was the third time the company had raised capital in its six-year history after initially raising $8m from private investors before raising a further $10m last year in a round led by Singapore-based Tembusu Partners.

Money from the last capital raise was to be used to help develop its smartphone apps and boost staff numbers.

The National Business Review reported the company was considering expanding into football with the money raised in the coming period used to develop relationships with broadcasters, a new fantasy league feature, payment processing and e-commerce abilities.

It would also allow users to overlay wagon-wheels and other stats onto video taken of amateur games.

The company was aiming to offer more features than its competitors, which include CricInfo, now owned by US giant ESPN.

CricHQ has more than 100 staff with around 30 in Wellington and most of the rest based in India.