Shoes of Prey stumbles, gives staff boot

ONLINE footwear seller Shoes of Prey, a start-up backed by embattled Brisbane fund manager Blue Sky, has stopped taking customer orders and started axing staff.

“Behind the scenes, we faced struggles,” co-founder Jodie Fox posted on Instagram. “While all the indicators and data were positive, we were not able to truly crack mass-market adoption.”

Shoes of Prey sells high-end footwear, offering women ways to customise shoes and pledging to make items on order.

The shutdown comes weeks after Blue Sky warned investors in its own funds of financial struggles for Shoes of Prey, which started in Australia in 2009 before moving to the US.

Blue Sky, which has been under fire over the performance of other struggling assets, told the market this month that Shoes of Prey was having difficulty raising additional finance. Blue Sky funds were one of eight investors in Shoes of Prey, and had stumped almost $7 million into the company, with this now substantially written down. Fund investors were told yesterday that negotiations for any parties interested in Shoes of Prey would continue.

“We are making the difficult decision today to pause orders and actively assess all our options to either sell, or at a later date, reboot the business with substantial changes,” Ms Fox wrote. “Customers with outstanding orders will either receive their shoes as promised, or a full refund if we have been unable to make their shoes.”

Ms Fox also said the company would “cease normal trading” for the moment.