iCapsulate is an Australian-based coffee firm. The company manufactures biodegradable coffee pods, which are perfectly compatible with the popular Nespresso machines. The company is active on their Instagram page which is private for now.
The company is owned by Kane Bodiam. Based on the information acquired from his LinkedIn profile, Bodiam is an alumnus of the University of Technology, Sydney. He is also the owner of the National Barista Academy.
Bodiam’s journey with iCapsulate has been long and dominated by tit-for-tat statements. In most cases, these statements are seen to obscure the truth and they appear to burry the company further each time they are said.
Bodiam attended the third season of Channel Ten television series Shark Tank in 2017. He went there to bid for an investment in his firm and succeeded. His first bid was $2.5 million for a 15% stakeholder share. But, he only succeeded when he bid the same amount for a 22.5% stake and got a deal from Shark Andrew Banks.
The Shark Tank Investment Lost
The $2.5 million deal never went through due to various reasons based on whom you ask. This contract remained in its due diligence phase and was canceled in the end. Why this deal eventually collapsed is a question that Banks and Bodiam answer quite differently.
Would you believe Bodiam, whose narration has been challenged successfully in court, or Banks, whose professional reputation is on the line each time he decides to invest in a company?
Bodiam said:
“They stopped communicating so we stopped communicating. It was just moving slowly and we were moving quite quickly. We made a decision probably two or three months after we met Andrew that we were just going to go it alone…”
Bodiam said that iCapsulate gave Banks’ investment team some information at the beginning. But, Baodiam insists that after Banks received all the required certification and everything, the deal collapsed. But, Shark Banks had this to say:
“It didn’t go because on the show you’ll remember they said, ‘We are the exclusive producers of biodegradable coffee pods and the CSIRO will validate that soon. And guess what? They didn’t, and they aren’t. So, for 2.5 million bucks I wasn’t going to risk that.”
Where Is iCapsulate Currently?
The firm went into ‘voluntary’ administration in 2018. In that context, Andrew Barnden of Rodgers Reidy was appointed as the liquidator. Barnden did not think that the biodegradable coffee pod manufacturing company was insolvent and would carry on with its trading.
Nonetheless, finding a website associated with this company is almost impossible just like it is the case with getting a transparent and public social media account that is actively operated by the company.
Some analysts now say that the company has a net worth of about $100K as of October 2021.
The Takeaway
Shark Tank and iCapsulate have a complicated past that is dominated by the contradicting ‘he said’ ‘he said’ statements. Thus, finding the real facts about the company and the deal that went sour is quite a daunting task.
Nobody knows what the future holds for iCapsulate and Kane Bodiam. What we learn here is that honesty is the best policy to build a brand in the business world.