Scam: Here, buy some ‘magic’ beans from us
Shitty business and questionable investment decision from backers: Give us money to develop ‘magic’ beans. Turns out there are no magic beans, so we work on ladders now…
Edit: I’m not trying to defend IQ2. I think at least morally their approach / communication is questionable. I have no idea if there is intentional / unlawful wrongdoing. My impression is just that they had big naive unrealistic dreams in the beginning and people bought into that and wanted to believe. It sounds to me like they had not enough experience on what it entails to produce a product at scale (including dealing with manufacturers). In my opinion there is no winner in this situation. Neither IQ2 not the backers. I feel sorry for both and wished it would have worked out. I would have loved to buy the original design once available.