Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace Financial Deal is likely to collapse

A deal to take over the former start-up business network of the Duke of York now seems to be questioning, sources near the negotiations have told the BBC.

The Dutch company Startupbootcamp (SBC) had held conversations about buying Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace Network, a sale that could have offered him a financial lifeline of several million.

But sources in the vicinity of SBC say despite an announcement of an intended takeover and talk about possible financing of Bahrain, nothing has been signed and no transactions have been carried out.

It is because Prince Andrew’s finances have been under intensive research, with questions about how he can afford to live in his Royal Lodge -Herenhuis after he was Financially cut off by King Charles.

The prince must find several million pounds a year to cover and pay the safety costs for the maintenance of the 19th-century house with 30 rooms, in Windsor.

A lucrative source of income seemed to be on the horizon, where SBC was reported on a large scale in the UK Press to be busy buying the contacts and the network of the Pitch@Palace project.

In February, SBC announced its plans: “International investment group that takes over former Pitch@Palace Global Network.”

Pitch@Palace had been a Dragon’s Den-Style Pitching competition for new business ideas, founded Prince Andrew in 2014 and was run by him before he would resign from Royal Tasks in 2019.

SBC had said it was attracted by Pitch@Palace’s inheritance of contacts, with 80,000 applications of 3,000 entrepreneurial companies in more than 60 countries.

The Dutch company, which has been carried out since 2010, helps to supervise and grow starting companies, in particular in the technology sector, with investments in 1,700 early phase companies and running in 27 countries.

A takeover of the Pitch@Palace network seemed on the hands of SBC that the partnership would be a “fantastic opportunity” and that it wanted to use a “great but sleeping” network of entrepreneurs. Events were already held together.

But sources in the vicinity of SBC now say that despite a meeting in Buckingham Palace and a positively sounding press release about seeing “immense value in the network”, nothing was concluded.

No deal with Prince Andrew was ever signed or closed, and no transactions were done, either in Europe, the Central East or China, according to SBC’s side of negotiations. Prince Andrew was approached for comment.

The plans to take over the Pitch@Palace network were initially presented as a project between SBC and his “Strategic Partner”, an investment company in Bahrain, called Waterberg Stirling.

That scheme no longer seems to be in place, with sources near SBC who say that now with the investment firm “wanted ties”.

Waterberg Stirling was registered in Bahrain at the end of 2024 by Dominic Hampshire, an adviser to Prince Andrew. The prince has had Long -term business connections with Bahrain.

There are also strong ties between the royal families in the UK and Bahreini, where King Hamad of Bahrain Charles in Windsor visits in November 2024.

Mr Hampshire is the only appointed director of Waterberg Stirling in registration documents, but another person who is linked to the company has been Adnan Sawadi.

In July 2024, the entrepreneur gave Mr. Sawadi a presentation in China that the intended partnership between SBC and the successor of Pitch@Palace, Innovate Global, which he hoped would offer a bridge that connects in the middle -east with projects in China.

His speech chose Praise Yang Tengbo – the man who would be later that year accused of being a Chinese spyLooking for influence on Prince Andrew, claims that Mr. Yang has continued to reject as false.