Reading about white collar crime in the new yorker and this detail is just perfect newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
erin griffith
26.7K posts
erin griffith
@eringriffith
New York Times reporter // Startups and VC
🦄 Writing a book about the startups in the ZIRP era🦄
- A startup called ON Platform, once known as GameOn, raised $80m in funding from investors including celebs like Snoop Dogg and Joe Montana. Today its founder, Alexander Beckman, and his wife, Valerie Lau, were arrested for fraud. Some of the craziest details from the
- some Robinhood staff were unhappy about the trading halt... so Robinhood gives them a $40 DoorDash credit? 👀 theinformation.com/articles/robin…
- 2010: founder of startup with big exit ➡️ VC 2011: techcrunch blogger ➡️ VC 2014: c-suite at startup with ok exit ➡️ VC 2019: stripe engineer ➡️ VC 2020: VC podcast ➡️ VC 2021: VC meme account ➡️ VC
- just learned about a wild legal fight between a VC firm and startup: 1. Startup is fundraising, VC firm sends unsolicited term sheet. 2. Startup says sorry, the round is oversubscribed. 3. VC wires the money anyway. 4. Startup returns it... (cont ⤵️)
- Crazy lawsuit from an investor - Softbank - against a startup - IRL. Softbank invested $150m in 2021 ($25m went to insiders) on the claim that IRL had 12m monthly users. But the company was spending 50k a month on a bot army and the app was "a virtual ghost town."
- 12 million people attended a virtual travis scott concert in Fortnite"probably the biggest room that has ever been assembled online," says David Sacks of this new Twitter Space with Ron DeStantis and Elon Musk (first one didn't work and was canceled) i have been in bigger Clubhouse rooms x.com/i/spaces/1eaJb…
- the tech buzzword hype cycle plays out the same way every time. FIRST, a startup breaks out and VCs rush to fund it.
- Replying to @eringriffithHis wife, a lawyer, was also allegedly in on it, fabricating bank accounts and audit statements, including one that showed a $13m cash balance when the real balance was $25.93(!!!!!!!). When investors demanded to see the bank account directly from the bank, the pair pulled this
- SmileDirectClub has filed for bankruptcy and alongside the announcement, they included an infographic listing other brands that have gone bankrupt. All the cool companies are doing it!
- Replying to @eringriffith4. VC firm FAKES signatures on the term sheet and threatens the startup with “nasty, public PR battles” and a “fight until the bitter end” if the startup doesn't take their $. 5. Startup sues, gets a different kind of $ - settlement. full story:
- Replying to @eringriffithThat's how hard investors were fighting to dump money into startups over the last 2 years. Today it's more like the other way around...
- would love someone to write a catchy song that teaches people 100% = doubled 200% = tripled 300% = quadrupled
- SCOOP: Robinhood just raised $1 billion in funding from existing investors. w/ @katekelly @nathanielpopper @andrewrsorkin
