AN entrepreneur has moved to reassure investors that a crowdfunding scheme he raised more than £120,000 through is not a scam despite customers having waited more than a year to receive their goods.

Darin Philip, from Howley, attracted backers in far flung places such as Singapore, Japan, India and Russia after designing the 'unique' Cronovo smart watch - which has a built-in electrocardiogram machine.

But, despite the fundraising campaign having ended in January last year, supporters are yet to receive their watches and feel that communication over the product has been poor.

Jaina McGregor, an investor from the USA, told the Warrington Guardian: "Many backers are worried that he has run off with their money, as updates are very sparse and only tend to include ambiguous reasons for delays.

"Many of the backers have no recourse to even attempt to get their money back on a seemingly doomed project.

"I'd rather have the watch than go through any of the legal action that many commentators are threatening.

"Business owners can get overwhelmed easily, especially in the era of crowdfunding.

"However, if it is a scam I feel it's my duty to try and prevent others from being swindled."

But Mr Philip has assured customers that they will receive their smart watches.

The Riverside Close resident and former Priestley College pupil said: "The project is going on successfully but we have had a few issues - after our launch, we had a lot of feedback and added new features to our product.

"While we were in production we met some technical problems that we have had to solve which took us some time, but now we are back with the issues solved and moving ahead at full speed.

"Me and the whole team are now based in the far east to get this project completed as fast as we can.

"We have also released an update to our customers on what is going on.

"Since we are trying to make a great quality product, it does take some time - we have also told our customers that delays are possible during their purchases.

"Even so, we are doing our level best to get it into the hands of the customers as soon as possible."