A flamboyant e-business pioneer, once ranked among the richest young millionaires in Britain, has seen his encryption technologies company fold with more than £1m of debts after a series of allegedly broken promises to creditors.
Joseph de Saram, 28, who last year shared 18th place on the Sunday Times' young rich list with David and Victoria Beckham, founded Rhodium in 1995 after just two years as a graduate IT consultant. But this week more than five suppliers have secured the company's liquidation after it failed to pay for a number of hardware orders.
Proceedings were first brought against the Sheffield-based firm by hardware sup pliers Info Techtronic, which is owed £205,000 and had received a number of "bouncing" cheques and promises of payment from Rhodium that were not kept.
A spokesman for the Leeds District Registry Court confirmed that Rhodium, which employed seven staff, had been compulsorily wound up. Next week a liquidator would be appointed and Mr de Saram, who is thought to be visiting friends in Sri Lanka, will be interviewed over the possible ways of retrieving creditors' money.
Mr de Saram, who claims via the Rhodium website to be worth "in excess of $200m", reportedly gave up his childhood ambition to become a neurosurgeon in order to "stretch his mind" by starting his own business.
In March he told the Sunday Times that he was sceptical about the future of some internet firms.
"They lack substance," he said. "They don't have a balance sheet and their valuations are artificially high, based on hype.
"There's a lot of euphoria about now. I can see a Wall Street crash or South Sea Bubble burst."
Rhodium will now join CitiKey, a wireless provider of restaurant and city guides, which has also been put into liquidation after burn rates reached an estimated $1m a month.
About 90 workers across Europe are expected to lose their jobs.
CitiKey filed for bankruptcy proceedings on Monday after plans to restructure the firm failed to get the backing of a two-thirds majority of the board.
The founders of the company, which was set up in 1998, were among those who rejected financial proposals from venture capitalist. It is thought that Atlas Venture and Crescendo Ventures had wanted to dilute some non-venture-capitalist shareholdings by up to a factor of ten.
