On April 11, following the circulation of a press release, a story claiming that Scottish proptech firm Letting Cloud had been acquired by US holiday rental company Airbnb began appearing throughout various news outlets, including DIGIT.

Soon after, Airbnb stated that they have no prior relationship with Letting Cloud or its owner, Scottish entrepreneur Grant MacCusker and doubts started emerging not only about the voracity of this deal, but of Letting Cloud itself and its CEO.

In a comment given to DIGIT, a spokesperson for Letting Cloud said at the time: “In the wake of recent developments in various media outlets, the matter is now in the hands of our lawyers and we will not be making any further comment at this time.”

Now, a new investigation from UKTN has revealed a checkered history of false claims, self-aggrandising – as well as some notable accolades – all centred around Letting Cloud’s CEO.

Quotes from an anonymous source familiar with MacCusker and the supposed deal commented on the story, saying: “It seemed such a good story about a growing Scottish tech business but unfortunately it was too good to be true.”

The Original Story 

A press release sent to DIGIT on April 11 claimed that Letting Cloud – an Edinburgh-based property portal set up by entrepreneur Grant MacCusker – was set to be acquired by property behemoth Airbnb. With the press release claiming that Letting Cloud has over 5,000 agents advertising over 500,000 properties in the holiday, short, and long-term rental sectors throughout the UK each year.

It also stated that the tech that the platform is built on was set to help Airbnb with the Scottish Government’s legislation changes surrounding short-term holiday lets as well as Westminster’s imminent clampdown on ‘party houses’.

The press release also included a fabricated quote from Airbnb Director of Engineering Jordanna Kwok, saying: “We were attracted by the array of interesting problems being tackled by Letting Cloud, and how they were addressing them using modern and emerging technology.

“Whilst both companies shared similar values and market share, the technical acquisition will bring more clarity to the UK short-term and holiday rental market.

“Airbnb are continuing to thrive on solving interesting problems which will help with the recent government legislation being rolled out in Scotland and the UK.”

The UKTN Investigation

Once Airbnb had come out stating that it had no relationship with Letting Cloud or MacCusker and that the quote included in the press was fabricated, Letting Cloud’s website was quickly pulled and any enquiries were met blanket statements about the matter being the hands of lawyers – though, Letting Cloud would not confirm to UKTN which law firm was handling the case.

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Following this, the media outlet discovered Letting Cloud’s (now deleted) LinkedIn page. On it, they probed the backgrounds of two Letting Cloud employees – its chief technology and product officer, “Phillip Scott” and chief marketing officer, “Nicola Wood”.

Both employees had impressive careers before supposedly taking roles at Letting Cloud, with Scott having worked as a UX designer for eBay and Wood working as head of product marketing at Santander. Upon investigation by UKTN though, not only did neither company have any record of either Scott or Wood working at eBay and Santander, respectively, it turned out the display images used for each of their LinkedIn profiles used popular stock images. The two profiles have now been deleted.

As well as phantom employees, MacCusker’s previous business dealings and boasts appear to have the markings of falsification.

UKTN probed MacCusker’s claims of successful business exits, specifically, when he stated on LinkedIn that he had taken, ““Alexander Crombie Property Management from a startup in 2009 to a successful exit in 2015”. However, UKTN discovered through Companies House filings that Alexander Crombie Property Management had been dissolved in 2015 and that Letting Cloud was in negative equity of nearly £100,000.

How Will This Affect Scottish Tech?

Pernicious, gallous, naïve… however you may describe MacCusker’s attempts to create a ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ narrative, crescendoing in an acquisition from a tech behemoth, won’t have much bearing on the broader Scottish tech ecosystem in the long-term, with it’s reputation likely to endure through this most bizarre of occurences – one that you would struggle to find anything comparable to in recent history.

What the story does though, is give pause for thought in the vulnerabilities that exist in the dissemination of this kind of information.

It’s likely fair to say that the PR company that wrote the original release and the news outlets that covered it weren’t at any great fault – due diligence is a fluid process, and if you’re known in Scottish tech, benefit of the doubt is a tradable currency and from what DIGIT understands, the PR company that issued the release had no reason to doubt the voracity of MacCusker’s claims.

Whether this story changes the parameters of how PR and media come to a confluence on how to adequately conduct due diligence in a way that’s satisfactory is an unknown. It’s certainly a teachable moment, but immediacy is still king, and as sad as it may be, putting out an incorrect story that you can amend later, first, is always going to be the go-to over putting out the correct story, last.