Entrepreneur working on new venture after Little Tokyo Two business went into liquidation

As a Brisbane entrepreneur attempts to move on after his startup incubator went into liquidation this week, attention has been drawn to the the criminal past of his new “legal and finance partner’’.

Little Tokyo Two founder Jock Fairweather and dogs Melted Cheese (left) and Chilli Dawg. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

UP AND RUNNING

The brains behind one of Queensland’s biggest network of startup hubs has called it quits.

Or has he?

Entrepreneur Jock Fairweather (one of those names you just can’t make up) announced on Tuesday that he was pulling the plug on his Little Tokyo Two business, which he launched five years ago.

Left unmentioned was the fact that he already has a similar venture up and running in Brisbane with a business partner who previously spent time behind bars. More on that below!

In an email sent out to associates on Tuesday, Fairweather said Little Tokyo Two had been placed in voluntary liquidation this week.

Little Tokyo Two abandons Brisbane startup incubator The Capital

“Despite the success of our incubation process, the business of running a co-working space has been struggling, with increased competition in the market and new entrants, who under cut prices to attract new members,’’ Fairweather wrote.

XXXX BREWERY RED-FACED OVER ‘ILLEGAL’ OPERATION

“After stress testing our future financial model and the financial difficulty we have recently faced we have concluded that the viability of the LT2 as a co-working space is an unsustainable option for our future.’’

The business was a co-anchor of The Capital hub in the Queen Street Mall but City Beat spies tell us it had failed to pay rent for the past three months or so.

Brisbane Marketing has now stepped in until a new operator is found.

Little Tokyo Two founder Jock Fairweather. Picture: AAP image, John Gass

Sites at Spring Hill and Petrie Terrace have shut, while Springfield and Gold Coast venues are now run by different operators. Several of these are understood to have been bleeding at least $10,000 month.

As the cash flow crisis intensified since the start of the year, key staffers were made redundant and interns went unpaid, our sources report. It’s also understood that Fairweather often failed to turn up to appointments.

NEXT VENTURE

Despite these setbacks, Fairweather has now launched a new startup mentoring business called Two Ventures.

Kicking off in June, it’s offering one year “partnerships’’ with clients that include 60 hours of advice and access to more than 250 “industry connections’’.

A promotional flyer obtained by City Beat touts “quarterly organized investor meetings: Golf Days, Boozy dinners’’ and, rather curiously, “entrance to our lifetime trust circle’’.

Among the rules is this gem: “No F---wits’’.

Fairweather’s “legal and finance partner’’ in the venture is Brisbane outfit PEF Capital, which was started in 2017 by a bloke named Stephen Arulogun.

A former Little Tokyo Two operative, Arulogun is a lawyer who highlights his work with the Electoral Commission of Queensland and the CCC’s Operation Belcarra, which exposed dodgy practices in numerous local government elections after the 2016 poll.

HIDDEN PAST

What Arulogun fails to mention is his past life as a chemist at Mt Gravatt.

Police searched his pharmacy and home in 2011 and seized restricted drugs and poisons, including methadone and pseudoephedrine. He was hit with four charges, including possession of dangerous drugs, and a condition was imposed on his license by the Pharmacy Board of Australia.

Following his arrest later that year, further charges were laid and he pleaded guilty in early 2012. He was sentenced to 18 months in the iron motel and got out after just six months.

His release came with a number of conditions, including a ban on dealing with restricted drugs or entering any pharmacy.

“The evidence shows that in a number of respects he breached these conditions and did so quite deliberately,’’ a QCAT ruling found.

Not surprisingly, Arulogun’s application for renewal of his license was refused and his name was struck off the national register in mid-2013.

Fast forward to today and now all Two Venture clients are directed to his PEF Capital to draw up financial agreements at $400 a pop.

Neither Arulogun nor Fairweather returned calls seeking comment.