News: BERG, the design company behind Little Printer and one of the stars of the London technology scene, is to close after failing to establish a sustainable business around its connected products.

"Folks, I've got some news about Berg to share," wrote co-founder Matt Webb on the company’s blog today. "We're wrapping up for this incarnation. Our partnerships and our services, they’re done. A few things left, then hibernation."

Webb added that a skeleton crew will keep the Little Printer project alive until March next year, at which point they hope to sell the concept or release the code.

BERG, which stands for British Experimental Rocket Group, started out in 2005 as a design consultancy working for clients including Google and Intel and developing innovative apps such as Mag+, the first magazine publishing platform for the iPad. In 2012 BERG was named one of the world’s 50 most innovative companies by Fast Company.

Based near Old Street in London’s "Tech City" cluster, BERG became a darling of the UK tech scene thanks to Little Printer, a cute wireless desktop mini-printer that prints information culled from the user's favourite news, information and social media sources onto thermal paper to create a personalised miniature newspaper.

The charming product was an early indicator of the possibilities of "internet of things" technology and was shortlisted for the Design Museum’s Design of the Year award in 2013.

BERG had planned to build a business around the technology they had developed for Little Printer and launched BERG CLOUD, which they described as "cloud services for hardware innovators".

However, despite receiving a round of funding in 2013 to push Little Printer and its associated technology onto the market, Webb today announced that the company was to close.

"We've not reached a sustainable business in connected products," Webb explained.

BERG's Little Printer is included in our book, Dezeen Book of Ideas. Buy it now for just £12.