I was just checking the status of a pre-order delivery that was submitted in February of 2016 only to find the following message. Site, account records, social media accounts have all been wiped. I was told repeatedly that since it was a crowd funding pre-order that I was not eligible for a refund until my order was fulfilled and need to be returned within 6days of receipt. Are there any current lawsuits or class action claims out there against this company? See site message below. www.getkanoa.com 

Important Notice

Dear backers of KANOA,

Over the past 2 years you have joined KANOA on this journey to create something special. Despite the many challenges and setbacks, you have continued to support us, and for that we are forever grateful.

Unfortunately, we have come to a roadblock. We’ve summarized a chain of events to explain how we got here and what it means for you. 

How we got here:

KANOA was born out of a passion for merging music and technology into our everyday life while doing that in the most natural way possible.

Before opening up our crowdfunding campaign, the foundation of KANOA was already in the works. Our founder invested the initial capital in KANOA, which went primarily into market research and a feasibility study designed by a large engineering firm hired to develop the product.

Year 1: Progress looked promising until the end where it became apparent that we were not ready for production; the product did not meet our standards and we knew it would not meet yours either.

Year 2 : It has always been our mission at KANOA to seek the highest of quality at all cost. Thus we made the tough and costly decision to start over and develop the product we had initially envisioned. Our dedication to our backers and their belief in our product pushed us to continue.

To catch up on a mostly lost Year 1, we began hiring more in-house, brought on seasoned experts to manage the transition into a new team of hand-picked engineers, and took greater control of the development of the product. Another costly endeavor, but our team included some of the most skilled and hard-working people. Throughout this process, being completely transparent with our backers became a corner stone of our culture, posting a detailed update every single Thursday since. We partnered with an excellent contract manufacturer who helped us make leaps of progress towards bringing the product to market.

Last week : We shipped some of the first KANOA earphones and launched our mobile app into the Apple App Store. .

Capital funding is essential for ramping up production. Unlike on typical crowdfunding platforms we allowed backers to ask for refunds at any time. This policy kept us honest, but also added vulnerability once we had made major financial commitments. Setbacks and some bad publicity, like reviews of non-shippable beta units, stirred our audience. Most significantly and to our unpleasant surprise, our investors recently backed out of our funding round. We do not blame them, but this was a pivotal setback since capital was essential for ramping up production.

Today : At this time, we are in negotiations with investors for funding, and also large tech companies on an acquisition, while prioritizing our commitment via KANOA to you. Unfortunately, without that investment, we do not have enough capital to stay operational while we find a solution. 

What this means for backers:

As a backer you have played an integral role in the development of the KANOA product and company. We are proud of the level of engagement and passion you have shared with us every day. Our loyalty and dedication has always been towards you. Which makes it even more difficult to say that without the capital to fund production, we will not be fulfilling any more preorders.

While we are proud of our team for taking the company this far, without the necessary capital to continue, all employees have been let go; this means that customer support and social media are unmanned or have been shut down.

This is not the outcome we had foreseen, and with the quick turn of events, we are emotionally overwhelmed. We know you are disappointed, and can only ask that you understand that we genuinely tried. 

KANOA was a small dedicated team, and we fought persistently day and night to make KANOA a reality. You can be assured that we are doing our utmost best to come back to you in the future with an option to deliver to you.

Sincerely, 

            -KANOA, INC.