According to CNBC, SoftBank's Vision fund accused the founder of startup IRL - a company operating in the field of social media ( Social Network ), of inflating user data and lying to the fund about the performance of the social network. association and defrauded millions of dollars.
Startup IRL launched in April 2021 and is introduced as "one of the fastest growing social networks for Gen Z".
At this time, SoftBank seems to see a "strong" level of interaction from IRL users, which could help this social network explode even more, similar to what Facebook or Twitter have done. Therefore, just Phone Number List one month after IRL was founded, SoftBank invested $150 million in this company through the Vision II fund.
Allegedly submitted to the court in San Francisco, SoftBank said it had received information that IRL had 12 million monthly active users, but this number was not true.
In addition, the Vision fund believes that IRL is secretly filling the social network with an army of bots, creating the appearance of a growing social network but in reality, this is just a fraudulent cover.
The IRL social network incident was exposed when the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened an investigation into IRL late last year. In April 2023, CEO Abraham Shafi was suspended from his position and the company dissolved in June.
The lawsuit also raises questions about the level of oversight SoftBank applies to companies in its portfolio.
When third-party assessments of user numbers were significantly lower than IRL sales, SoftBank representatives readily accepted CEO Abraham Shafi's explanation that they "certainly didn't have the numbers." Exactly".