Fika
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Fika was a London-based mental fitness platform founded in 2017 by Nick Bennett and Gareth Fryer. Delivered as an app sold to employers, universities and colleges, it offered bite-sized training modules for everyday team skills such as onboarding, meetings and manager-employee conversations, aiming to make mental fitness as routine as physical fitness. Clients included retailer DFS, and it reported over 50 customers as it expanded.
02 / Fika FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors supported by the current evidence
The available evidence shows a capital-constrained company that ran out of runway: Fika raised about 1.2 million pounds in 2021 and was wound up by a court order in May 2024 after a creditor filed a winding-up petition in December 2023. The record contains no reported explanation of operating causes, so this account rests on the liquidation documents.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Liquidation
petition 29 Dec 2023; compulsory liquidation winding-up commenced 24 Apr 2024. BusinessCloud (8 Jul 2024) reported the London mental-fitness platform was wound up by the courts and in liquidation with a creditors’ meeting scheduled.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Employer-led mental fitness app with bite-sized team training
- 02
1.2 million pound raise in 2021 to expand to the US
- 03
Creditor files winding-up petition in December 2023
- 04
Court orders wind-up in May 2024; liquidators appointed that September