A Newcastle-based robotics firm says it is facing shutdown after a court order froze its bank accounts, leaving it unable to fund a legal appeal.
Dr Atif Syed, founder of Wootzano, has taken to LinkedIn to warn that the business is at risk of liquidation, not because demand has dried up, but because of what he calls a “procedural trap”.
He said Innovate UK Loans Limited, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), petitioned the court to wind up the company, which led to an order that immediately froze the firm’s accounts.
Syed says that move has put the company in an impossible position under Scottish legal rules.
In his words, “in Scotland, a company cannot speak in court without a solicitor”, but with accounts frozen, he says Wootzano cannot pay a solicitor to lodge the appeal needed to challenge the order.
If an appeal is not filed by the 28th November, he says liquidation becomes final. “A functioning DeepTech company can be silenced without ever being heard,” he wrote.
“This is not how innovation should die.”
The business took out an Innovate UK Innovation Loan worth £838,000 in 2022.
Syed said the product was positioned as “patient, flexible capital for high-growth innovators”, with flexibility built into the contract.
However, he claims that when a funded subsystem failed to reach commercialisation, “no flexibility was offered”, and the case moved straight into a standard debt-enforcement route.
In a second post published on Sunday evening, Syed said he has been contacted by founders, investors and academics, as well as people inside Innovate UK and UKRI, who were shocked by Wootzano’s situation and shared similar experiences of the Innovation Loans programme.
He pointed to Innovate UK’s own portfolio data to argue that the scheme is not working as intended.
The figures he shared show 290 companies funded, 228 still active, 44 in liquidation or administration and 17 dissolved.
Syed said that means 61 companies – 21% of the portfolio – are already gone.
He also highlighted what he described as a 59.8% failure rate once repayment starts, adding that many of the firms that have failed did so after entering repayment rather than during their R&D phase.
Based on those numbers, he argued that the programme is operating less like patient capital and more like what he called “an insolvency accelerator”.
Syed then laid out his account of Wootzano’s specific case, saying Innovate UK Loans placed the loan into default even though the funded subsystem had not commercialised yet – a point at which he believes the agreement allows discretion, restructuring or deferment.
He said options such as loan-to-equity conversion were discussed but never progressed and also claimed communication later stopped and enforcement continued despite Innovate UK Loans allegedly relying on 2022 accounts rather than current data, while being aware Wootzano had signed contracts worth £537 million and was expanding strategically.
He added that senior leadership within Innovate UK and UKRI were not aware a petition existed.
Syed is asking Innovate UK to consent to recalling the winding-up order and pausing liquidation so Wootzano can restructure, resume shipments and protect jobs and contracts.
Wootzano is the only British post-harvest agricultural robotics tech company shipping commercial robots to Japan and other countries.
With the appeal deadline set for the 28th November, Syed said the immediate priority is securing a solicitor to file the appeal.
He concluded: “Every hour matters.
“Even a share of this post helps.
“I have spent years building this with an extraordinary team.
“I am not giving up, but right now, the company is legally unable to act without help.
“If you believe in fairness, due process, and protecting UK innovation, please support or share this widely.”