challenge.org Reviews 2

My company, Alliance Marine Finance, engaged Challenge Advisory, a UK-based strategy consulting firm led by Karveh Cavalieri, in good faith to support our startup’s investor readiness and capital-raising efforts. Under the agreement, Challenge Advisory was responsible for delivering both technical advisory services — including the development of investor materials, pitch decks, and financial models — as well as identifying and introducing relevant potential investors.
The agreement, executed on December 29, 2024, and effective from January 1, 2025, required our company to pay a £10,000 monthly retainer, in addition to a success-based fee contingent on funds raised. Unfortunately, despite timely payments totaling £20,000 over the initial two months, the firm failed to deliver on its contractual commitments.
Throughout the engagement, not a single meaningful deliverable was provided. All stated deadlines were consistently missed, with little to no proactive communication or accountability. There was no evidence of the promised technical work, and no substantive updates were shared despite repeated requests.
On April 8, 2025, we formally terminated the agreement due to breach of contract, citing non-performance and lack of delivery. Our termination notice included a request for written acknowledgment and a response within seven days. As of April 25, 2025, Challenge Advisory has failed to acknowledge the termination notice or respond to our request for a refund or resolution.
It is also important to note that this firm was introduced by Jeffrey Beckles, principal of Beckles & Associates, based in the Bahamas acting as an introducing agent. While his role was limited to the introduction and being a communication layer between my company and Challenge Advisory, he maintains a separate agreement entitling him to a share of the fees under our engagement. That said, introducers should bear some responsibility for ensuring the reliability and professionalism of the parties they recommend — in this case, both delivery and oversight were clearly lacking. He is also the person that gave a lot of promises.
Prospective clients are advised to exercise extreme caution and perform thorough due diligence before engaging Challenge Advisory or similar consultants. Our experience was marked by overpromising, underdelivering, and a total absence of accountability. The lack of transparency and failure to execute have caused significant delays in our investor preparation process and placed our capital-raising efforts substantially behind schedule, with no visibility or confidence in the project's original trajectory.

A scam. Or at least so wildly incompetent that is might as well be a scam. They will promise investment, take your money, and deliver next to nothing. That is of course if they aren't alienating loads of VCs by no-showing meetings that they set up themselves. Watch out, this is a devious company that is intent on lining their own pockets while they pull one over on their clients. Ask around...few have any positive stories to tell of Challenge Advisory's fundraising team. There is a reason there are such big gaps in time between the few reviews out there...Challenge must scrub out all bad reviews and that leaves none left.