Monday 31 October 2016 8:04 am

Goldman Sachs said Powa was on a “clear path to a $50bn” valuation shortly before its collapse

Goldman Sachs suggested Powa was on a "clear path" to a $50bn valuation in a presentation just months before the so-called British tech unicorn sensationally collapsed.

A 60-page document seen by City PM shows Goldman valued the British technology company at between $16bn and $18bn in September 2015, five months before its collapse. It also suggested revenues could hit $5.5bn by the end of 2018.

The document shows Goldman was in talks with Powa over raising money through a private placement in mid-2016. The talks were taking place ahead of a deal with China Union Pay under which it was hoping to be placed in 100,000 Chinese retail locations within four months of launch, rising to 400,000 in the first 12 months.

In the document, Powa, whose technology allowed consumers to point their phones at adverts or products to be taken to an online shopping cart, is referred to as the "tech investment of the decade". The management team, including founder Dan Wagner, is described as "visionary".

The presentation suggested investors would expect a two- to three-times return on their investment, but also mooted a compound annual growth rate of 412 per cent between the end of 2015 and the end of 2017.

However, although Powa's joint venture with China Union Pay was signed in August 2015, it took until December 2015 for the deal to be approved by the Chinese government, meaning financing it had agreed on the back of the deal did not come through.

In February 2016, Deloitte was appointed administrator to the company, which was headquartered in the City's Heron Tower.

A spokesman for Goldman Sachs said: "The document was prepared solely for discussion with management and to provide them with a sense of their potential valuation versus publically listed peers if they met the projections in the business plan they provided to us."

Here's Wagner talking about his plans for Powa back in 2014: