ikordo cancels all meetings [Falco]

ikordo, a UK web application for arranging meetings between busy professionals, is to cease trading (i.e. Falco*), along with parent company Volutio.

The information I have is that despite much interest from potential investors – one of which I understand to be Eden Ventures – Volutio was unable to secure a further round of investment.

Prior to ikordo’s launch last year Volutio did some research and found that 25% of executives spend up to three hours doing the mechanics of organizing a meeting with people outside of their organisation; a further 6% spend a whole day doing so. So that’s a space for a startup to address, right?

However, my sources tell me that the firm found out what probably a lot of people could have told them – although lots of people have difficulty arranging meetings, especially between three or more people, most web apps tend to be beaten by people just picking up the phone. Getting adoption for a new service outside the enterprise is probably pretty damn hard.

As someone who was recently on the end of an ikordo invite, I have to say the interface to it was pretty damn confusing and it seemed to take days to organise a simple lunch. Or perhaps it was just me?

CEO James Cook is now looking for new opportunities, but with two years experience building a startup under his belt I daresay he’ll be snapped up.

Update: I forgot that there is a free web app for arranging meetings called doodle. It’s quite good.

* If you don’t understand “Falco” look here (btw, where is Dave Green when you need him?).