The Phantom Growth of Huboo: A Masterclass in Financial Illusion

Growth. It’s the buzzword every startup chases, and the one investors reward above all else. Huboo Technologies Limited understood this — and weaponised it. For years, Huboo projected the image of a thriving, disruptive logistics powerhouse. But dig beneath the glossy headlines and you’ll find a business model built on illusions, not innovation.

This blog post exposes how Huboo maintained a phantom narrative of growth while its finances steadily unravelled, and why this deception went unchallenged until it was far too late.

1. Turnover Isn’t Profit

On paper, Huboo’s revenues were rising:

• 2020: £4.2 million turnover
• 2021: £13.7 million turnover
• 2022: £17.7 million turnover

Impressive, right? Only if you ignore the fact that losses were skyrocketing even faster:

• 2020: £3.5 million loss
• 2021: £13.3 million loss
• 2022: £47.1 million loss

Huboo was spending over £2 for every £1 it earned. That’s not growth — that’s burn. And yet, investor decks and public press releases continued to tout expansion, new sites, and customer wins without context.

2. The Reality Behind the PR

Tech publications and startup blogs echoed Huboo’s claims. They highlighted automation, AI-powered fulfilment, and its so-called ‘revolutionary’ model. The truth? Much of the business was reliant on manual warehouse labour, strained processes, and capital infusions that never translated to efficiency.

Several former clients report basic issues — missed orders, late fulfilments, and disappearing inventory. How could this happen at a company celebrated as a logistics disruptor?

3. Misleading Metrics and Vanity KPIs

Huboo excelled at presenting vanity metrics — total number of packages shipped, number of clients signed, international expansion — while downplaying churn rates, operating losses, and fulfilment errors.

One ex-investor commented anonymously:

“They talked about 300% year-on-year growth. But when we pressed for detail, the answers became vague. There was no underlying profitability model — just burn and spin.”

4. The Role of Baaj and Atalla Capital

Baaj Capital and Atalla Capital facilitated this illusion by continuously raising funds or restructuring debts. Despite the clear financial red flags, they endorsed public narratives of success. Their silence after the collapse only reinforces suspicions that they knew the game was up long before the rest of us did.

Huboo’s board either failed to disclose the scale of the problem or actively participated in misdirection. Either way, transparency was lost — and trust along with it.

5. The Clients Who Bought the Hype

Small businesses believed Huboo was a stable partner. After all, a company raising tens of millions and opening multiple UK and EU fulfilment centres couldn’t be on the verge of collapse — right?

Wrong. Clients were lured in by the mirage and left stranded when operations ceased or transitioned chaotically to HUBOO TECH LIMITED — the new company now operating post-sale.

6. The Media’s Failure to Question

Part of the problem was the media. Positive press went unchallenged. No one asked tough questions about the company’s losses or its business model. Even as Companies House filings showed worsening deficits, the startup ecosystem continued to celebrate Huboo as a unicorn-in-waiting.

7. From Fiction to Fallout

Now that the dust has settled, it’s clear that Huboo’s growth was more fiction than fact. Real businesses don’t operate on debt alone. Real value isn’t created through marketing slides and vanity PR. Real fulfilment providers don’t implode overnight — unless something was wrong all along.

Conclusion: Growth Means Nothing Without Profit

Huboo’s case is a wake-up call to the UK startup ecosystem. If we continue to reward hype over health, we’ll see this story repeated again and again.

Huboo Technologies Limited may be dead. But its clone, HUBOO TECH LIMITED (Company No. 16143472), now walks in its place — with no mention of the failures that came before. Are we really meant to believe that nothing has changed?

Next: We turn our attention to Bodycare and the smokescreen used to conceal its collapse.