Quote from Guest on October 22, 2023, 10:35 am

From the now deleted “e-Mersion Media is a scam” blog. Clearly it was right but I think John and Chris threatened to sue them.

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Several individuals have been in touch with me, perplexed about how exactly e-Mersion Media rakes in the pounds, or rather has managed to muster a whopping £15 million. In layman’s terms, e-Mersion is nothing more than a modern-day Ponzi scheme, dressed up in digital garb.

The scheme works as follows: the founders jet off to a high-profile client in need of a digital magazine, taking advantage of business class flights, five-star accommodations, and top-notch nosh along the way. They then dazzle the client with a legitimate demo of the magazine on their admittedly impressive platform (full marks to the unsuspecting team who created the technology and crafted the magazines, believing this to be a bona fide business venture). Offering a free issue or trial to the client, who almost always bites (after all, it’s free and a bit of a novelty, isn’t it?), they then whip up this trial and cheekily slap the client’s logo into their investor deck as a “done deal”. Next, they raise the dosh, pay off the staff and contractors (or at least, they used to), deliver the goods, and splurge the rest on wooing the next few clients for more gratis demos, all before the first one susses out the sham and bins the deal.

Rinse and repeat, as they say.

This manner of operation means the company never actually turns a profit, living solely off investments. We’re talking about a “start-up” with a 10-year track record of zero revenue, having managed to pilfer £15 million from 80 unsuspecting investors. It’s no surprise that a proper venture capitalist wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole, and new victims for the con are becoming thin on the ground.

In particular cases, such as their tent-pole sporting “partners”, the “deals” were even more irresponsible. e-Mersion agreed to fork out sizeable licensing fees to both organisations. After costs Formula 1 set the company back nearly £2 million without a penny in return, and FIFA’s turned into such a cock-up they’re now reportedly taking e-Mersion to court (I will caveat that this is a rumor, I of course do not work for FIFA). But at least they made for some nifty logos on the investment deck for a brief spell.

So that’s the long and short of it. They offer free demos and present them to naïve investors as revenue-generating clients, raise the capital, generate zilch in revenue, and use the investment to gallivant off to the next client, leaving the mess of the first to be sorted with funds from the next.

A cautionary tale that, even in an age where digital transparency, data, and honesty are touted and promised, companies like e-Mersion may still trade on lies and deception. They disregard the very values they pitch, destroying the lives of investors, staff, and tarnishing the reputation of the brands they feign to partner with.

In the game of digital illusions, e-Mersion’s house of cards stands as a stark warning to all.