Is Airlander just a load of hot air?

Hybrid Air raised £2.1m on Crowdcube a year ago - now they are back for another £500k valuing themselves (if you cant stand heights look away now) at £55m.

Since the first raise, the company has delivered just over £9k of the promised £2m in sales revenue. Of course these were just silly projections so no one really cares about this chasm.

As yet this hybrid balloon/plane has not been made or flown or landed. There is no EIS.

It completed its new round on Crowdcube in just 2 days and is now over funding, in hovering mode - please look up, you cant miss it.

The Crowdcube pitch is full of the usual Crowdcube BS. Like for example the claim that Hybrid somehow beat off 136 companies to present at this February's Cleantech Innovate event in London. Is that really how it works?

When asked some very reasonable Q's on Crowdcube about the valuation, the answer was beyond belief. Apparently the way they valued this company is by taking the EBITDA 3 years out and multiplying this by the industry norm. So for example, given the delivery of £9k of sales against a projected £2m last year, we can all see how well this system works.

They also had the balls to tell another enquirer that if the sales had been in line with the projections, then so would the profits have been!

The plan is to IPO at the end of this year to raise the £30m required to put the machine into production.

It is hard to see why this one has been so quick to raise the money when Pact Coffee failed. Both very highly valued but at least Pact had a product that had proven sales. It has to come down to 'dreaming'. Hybrid's video is very other worldly and cleverly gets the blood rushing. People are using CC for an adrenalin rush.

It will be fascinating to see what happens next. If what they claim is true then maybe £55m is OK but given the last set of promises proved wholly flawed, this is a pure guessing game. When at several thousand feet above the ground, I prefer a little more certainty. It will either be a spectacular success or go down in flames - there can be no half measures.

Good luck to all who float in her.