Aussie streaming service Guvera to relaunch as Dragonfli

Failed Australian music streaming service Guvera is apparently planning to relaunch in the US.

The Australian Financial Review reported that Guvera CEO Darren Herft is currently in the US to revive the company, and its main focus is Dragonfli Music, which describes itself as a consultancy designed to promote brands to listeners.

The Dragonfli Music initiative was first revealed by Herft in December 2017 in Sydney’s Federal Court.

Heft said two other former directors and executives from Guvera were involved with Dragonfli.

The company will use Guvera’s “brand channel technology” which allowed brands to target specific streaming channels with their advertising.

Dragonfli will not have playlists but will have music-related content.

According to the AFR Guvera will be placed into administration following demand from overseas creditors.

These were staffers at its now-defunct UK music service Blinkbox.

Guvera had bought it from Tesco four years ago but closed it down six months later, laying off 100 staff.

As previously reported by TMN, 80 of these successfully initiated a class action to be paid redundancies and won $6 million.

As a result, the Guvera board told investors it “will now look to restructure the company via a deed of company administration.”

Herft additionally told the AFR that once the music streamer was restructured “with no imminent threats of wind up, that the prospects are brighter for Guvera.”

He was one of three who founded Guvera in 2008 on the Gold Coast and launched it two years later as a streaming service with freemium and premium tiers.

At its peak, it was operating in 20 countries, had 17 million users and had raised $180 million from several thousand investors.

In mid-2016 it attempted to float on the Australian stock exchange to raise $80 million.

However the finance market raised the alarm that the company’s prospectus revealed it had lost $81 million in 2015, and the ASX rejected the IPO.

Guvera closed operations in 2017 but the plan always was to return once its financial and legal woes were smoothed out.