Once again proving that a successful crowdfunding campaign does not guarantee a successful final product, the makers of Lily, an autonomous camera drone, today announced that the project has been cancelled, and they will be refunding $34 million in pre-orders.

Lily was meant to be a small camera drone that could automatically follow and record users from a distance, with speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and a battery life of around 20 minutes. The company’s original goal was to create the drone version of a GoPro, and the promotional material for Lily showed the drone following snowboarders and cyclists.

“The camera market is huge,” company co-founder and Chief Executive Antoine Balaresque said when Lily was announced. “In five years, our goal is that all non-flying cameras are obsolete.”

Despite raising $34 million in pre-orders from eager customers, Balaresque and co-founder Henry Bradlow said in a blog post that they have been unable to secure sufficient funds to actually produce the drones.

“In the past year, the Lily family has had many ups and downs,” Balaresque and Bradlow said. “We have been delighted by the steady advancements in the quality of our product and have received great feedback from our Beta program.”

But they noted that essentially they were running out of money. “Over the past few months, we have tried to secure financing in order to unlock our manufacturing line and ship our first units – but have been unable to do this,” they said. “As a result, we are deeply saddened to say that we are planning to wind down the company and offer refunds to customers.”

Despite excitement over a potentially large market for drones for consumer and business applications, companies have stumbled on getting them to market. Google Inc. parent Alphabet Inc., for instance, just yesterday said it’s grounding its Titan drone program that was intended to provide Internet access to remote areas.

The company founders say that they will be offering refunds to all Lily customers over the next 60 days, with the funds being returned directly to the credit card originally used for the purchase. Customers whose credits cards have expired since pre-ordering can request a refund through this form.

Image courtesy of Lily Robotics