Fraud: Startup Failures

Hydrogen trucks that existed only on slides

The $8.5B cap table management platform that lost enterprise clients after a data misuse scandal revealed a rep had used client equity data to solicit competing investors

The TikTok killer backed by rappers — revenue claimed $100M, auditors found $600K

The EV division of Evergrande raised 9.7B dollars, built 14 factories, and delivered fewer than 1,400 cars before the parent company defaulted on 300B in debt.

Overstated lithium recovery rates by 33 points — Argonne's tests killed the Series B.

The Alzheimer's drug that hit $4B on manipulated data — SEC consent order, CEO resignation, open investigation

The AI shopping assistant that raised $38M claiming its AI automated purchases — then journalists discovered human workers in the Philippines were doing it manually

Electric pickup truck SPAC built on fabricated pre-order numbers

The Southeast Asian crypto exchange that froze withdrawals and then its CEO disappeared

The therapy app that secretly shared users' mental health data with Facebook and Snapchat for ad targeting

China's used-car unicorn IPO'd on NASDAQ for $225M and then unraveled via fraud allegations.

The retail crypto phenomenon that burned tokens to make holders feel rich while insiders drained $200M

Social events app raised $170M from SoftBank at $1.17B unicorn valuation. SEC investigation found 95% of reported users were bots. Abraham Shafi charged with securities fraud.

The hydrogen truck startup that reported 87 vehicle deliveries and had actually delivered about 20

The $1B carbon empire that built its fortune on credits that never existed.

Brazil's largest retail empire hid R$20 billion off-balance-sheet until a CEO discovered it on day 10

JPMorgan paid $175M for 4.25M users — 3.9M were fake

A social events app that became a $1.17B unicorn — then the SEC revealed 95% of its 20 million reported users were bots, and the company shut down.

EV fleet electrification via SPAC. A short-seller said the revenue was fake. The SEC agreed.

GM's $10B robotaxi bet suspended after an accident, a cover-up, and a California license revocation

The blockchain gaming platform reached $7B market cap then was torn apart by a $130M insider exploit and co-founder war

COVID test kit promises, $8B market cap, Chapter 11 — the biotech that ran out of miracles

Last-mile EV cargo van startup raised $450M via SPAC and shut down within two years when executives were caught buying pre-SPAC shares at employee prices.

Crypto brokerage brought down by a $650M loan to Three Arrows Capital

The plastic recycling unicorn that Hindenburg Research exposed as vaporware.

An 80,000% APY DAO whose CFO turned out to be a convicted crypto fraudster.

The $1.7B DeFi DAO whose treasury manager was revealed to be the co-founder of the collapsed QuadrigaCX exchange

The Chinese crypto exchange that suspended withdrawals and blamed it on a "system upgrade"

Hong Kong crypto exchange backed by NYSE technology halted withdrawals in November 2022 claiming a "system upgrade"—then its executives vanished and $60M in user funds disappeared.

BYJU's paid $300M for the children's coding startup then discovered the growth was a fiction of aggressive sales tactics

India's Shark Tank star raised $650M at $2.85B. CEO Ashneer Grover's phone call threatening a Kotak banker went viral. The company sued him for ₹88 crore in fraud.

Faked ARR to raise Series A — KPMG found out during Series B.

Africa's most valuable fintech startup hit by money laundering investigations and sexual harassment allegations simultaneously

The Singapore crypto lender that hid its Anchor Protocol losses until it was too late

The $60B algorithmic stablecoin that proved math can't substitute collateral.

The $18 billion crypto hedge fund that borrowed $3.5 billion to bet on LUNA — then disappeared when it hit zero

CEO falsified ARR, got ousted, and the engineers all left within 90 days.

Southeast Asia fashion unicorn collapsed when its CEO's numbers didn't add up

Korea's biggest blockchain game token lost 80% in 48 hours after lying about token supply.

$60 billion evaporated in seventy-two hours when an algorithmic stablecoin's peg broke—and its founder allegedly knew it could.

South Korean algorithmic stablecoin erased ~$40B in 72 hours in May 2022—the largest single crypto collapse in history and the trigger for a global contagion wave.

Coinseed secretly converted user funds to Dogecoin and blocked withdrawals until regulators shut it down.

The crypto exchange that used customer funds as a personal ATM.

The Solana DEX was drained of $117M through its own governance system by a trader who then voted himself a pardon

Argentina's cross-border digital lender collapsed when regulators in three countries found the books didn't add up.

Hydrogen electric trucks at $18B SPAC. The demo truck was rolling downhill. Founder convicted.

$5.5B valuation. Health screens in doctor offices. Billed clients for 26,000 screens that didn't exist.

Crypto lender promised 18% yield, delivered a federal indictment

Space infrastructure startup settled SEC fraud charges before going public — then went public anyway and crashed

An electric delivery van startup that went public via SPAC just nine months before filing for bankruptcy — with founders under SEC investigation for buying shares at a discount before the deal closed.

The play-to-earn NFT game with 2.8 million daily users and a $3B valuation — destroyed in one day when North Korea's Lazarus Group stole $625 million from its Ronin bridge

Raised $12M from Tiger Global; lost it to fraudsters within months of launch.

One fraudulent corporate client and €800K in bad debt ended Italy's invoice financing pioneer.

Digital media startup fabricated metrics — CEO impersonated YouTube's CEO

The unofficial Netflix Squid Game crypto went from $0.01 to $2,861 in days then the developers pulled $3.4M and vanished

Supply-chain finance. Built on insurance that did not exist.

Thodex's CEO fled Turkey with up to $13B in user funds, earning a 11,196-year prison sentence.

A Medicare Advantage InsurTech that went public via Chamath's SPAC — only for a short-seller report to reveal the DoJ had been investigating the company for months and the SPAC filing never disclosed it.

Fabricated 40% of revenue. Still has 10,000 stores.

€1.9B in a Philippine trust account that did not exist.

The €24B German fintech that was hiding a €1.9B hole — and fooled everyone for years.

The EHR startup valued at $1.5B, sold for $100M, then fined $145M for helping Purdue Pharma promote opioids

The accounting SaaS that sold AI-powered books — and quietly hired an army of human accountants to fake it

FCoin's 'trans-fee mining' innovation was a debt time bomb that exploded, stranding $130M in user funds.

Personalized gut health — until the FBI arrived

Canada's biggest crypto exchange: CEO died in India with the only passwords. $145M locked forever. Later revealed to be a Ponzi from day one.

New Zealand's largest crypto exchange — hacked for $16M+ in January 2019, placed into liquidation four months later with a 900,000-user ownership dispute still ongoing in 2024

Australian delivery SaaS. Announced fake contracts. ASIC charged founders.

Blood testing. Miniaturized. Fictional.

The $9B blood-testing unicorn built entirely on fabricated science — and the conviction of its founder

The original crypto Ponzi scheme that promised 1% daily returns — and made the phrase "Hey hey hey" famous before collapsing with $2.6 billion in investor losses.

The Latin American edtech that raised $36M for educational games — and fabricated six million active users to get there

Italy's BitGrail lost 17M NANO tokens and its founder was later convicted of concealing the theft.

The luxury island music festival that was FEMA tents and cheese sandwiches

Plant-based mayo unicorn — caught buying its own product off shelves

The injectable drug delivery startup that raised $250M, won deals with AstraZeneca and Hikma, and collapsed after its CEO was charged with securities fraud.

An AR motorcycle helmet with GPS and a rear camera — shut down when the CEO and his brother spent company funds on Burning Man trips, sports cars, and personal vacations.

The AR motorcycle helmet that raised $15 million from backers and spent it on cars and vacations

The fastest-growing HR software startup in history — until it was exposed for letting employees sell insurance without licenses, triggering a $4.5B valuation collapse.

AR motorcycle helmet with HUD raised $15M and $2.4M on Indiegogo. Co-founder bought a Ferrari. Company filed Chapter 7. Fraud investigation opened.

Dan Wagner raised $250M+ at a self-declared $2.7B valuation for a mobile commerce platform that generated £2.3M in revenue. Went into administration February 2016. Revenue multiple: 1,200x.

The CEO stole $14.5M from his own ID verification company — then got caught.

The exchange that handled 70% of all Bitcoin transactions — and lost 850,000 BTC to hackers while the CEO claimed everything was fine

Vinod Khosla's cellulosic biofuel company that promised to convert wood chips into gasoline — Mississippi State invested $75M and sued for fraud when production never materialised

Full-color 3D printing promise that evaporated into an acquisition before shipping a single unit.

Announced free legal music at Sundance 2008 with deals that didn't exist

The biometric payment startup that put fingerprint scanners in 2,600 grocery stores — and collapsed when its CEO's history of fraud convictions and $20M in personal misappropriation emerged

Gary Winnick laid 100,000 miles of undersea fiber. Cashed out $735M. Filed the 4th largest US bankruptcy.

Bernie Ebbers hid $3.8B in fraud and created the biggest bankruptcy in US history.

The European tech champion built on $700 million of fabricated revenues

The dot-com real estate portal that faked $390M in revenue. Multiple executives convicted. $10B peak.

The trade finance unicorn raised $600M to fund SME exporters globally and was placed into receivership in December 2023 after fraud allegations emerged against its leadership.

The Israeli insurtech unicorn raised $80M to connect insurance risk with capital markets, then collapsed in August 2023 when $4B in letters of credit turned out to be fraudulent.

Nigerian agricultural crowdfunding platform collapsed after failing to pay farmers and investors

Egyptian B2B commerce startup that collapsed in eighteen months amid allegations of financial fraud after raising $33M.

Berlin online luxury art auction platform raised €100M and went bankrupt amid shill bidding scandal

Spain's wifi company reached €1.5B market cap on the Madrid AIM market — then the CEO admitted revenues were 90% fabricated after a short seller published a research report

South Korean crypto yield platform promising 10 percent annual returns by deploying customer assets through algorithmic trading strategies

Nigerian crypto exchange that froze customer withdrawals in 2023 following a security breach, stranding millions of dollars of customer funds.