It has been confirmed that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has applied to wind up Dragon’s Den-style platform Pitch@Palace, which he founded while a working royal
Disgraced Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has applied to close down the business behind his platform to help entrepreneurs. Pitch@Palace was founded to connect start-ups with potential investors, mentors and industry figures when he was still a working royal. He claimed the Dragon’s Den-style platform had seen 3,000 jobs created.
But in a document filed with Companies House yesterday, signed off by Arthur Lancaster, the firm’s sole director, the company filed an application to be “struck off and dissolved”. Companies House lists Prince Andrew of Royal Lodge, Windsor as having “significant influence or control” over the business, which could now be wound up.
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Andrew resigned from his role with Pitch@Palace in 2019 after the backlash that followed an interview he gave to the BBC ’s Newsnight programme. The latest set of accounts showed it had £10,965 in cash at the end of March, down from £220,990 the year before.
The business was mired in controversy last year when it emerged the founder-partner of Pitch@Palace China was an alleged spy.
Yang Tengbo, who is said to have become a close confidant of Andrew, was banned from the UK by the Home Office. It is another blow for Andrew, who was stripped of his prince title and his dukedom over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
He is set to move from Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park sometime in the new year to the King’s private Sandringham estate after he was banished from the Royal Family.
The King took action by stripping his younger brother of his birthright to be a prince and his dukedom over his “serious lapses of judgment”.
The former prince has for many years been dogged by allegations he sexually abused Virginia Giuffre after she was trafficked by Epstein. Andrew strenuously denies the accusations.
It also emerged in recent weeks that he had emailed Epstein in 2011 saying “we’re in this together”, three months after he claimed he had broken all contact with the paedophile financier.
Andrew’s conduct could be debated by MPs for the first time this week, with the Liberal Democrats intending to raise his Royal Lodge rental arrangements, including details about the size of any payout for leaving the property.
The former prince is currently holed up inside Royal Lodge with his former wife Sarah Ferguson, with the pair said to be leading totally separate lives.
Members of the US Congress have also written to him requesting he sit for a “transcribed interview” in connection with his friendship with Epstein, and asking him to respond by November 20.
His daughters Princess Beatrice and her sister Princess Eugenie remain princesses despite their father’s banishment from the royal family and his new status as a commoner.
