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A San Francisco tech startup CEO is accused of misusing $2.2 million of her company’s investor cash to pay for personal expenses – including a luxury home, Super Bowl tickets and a destination wedding in the Caribbean.
According to an SEC complaint, the CEO raised roughly $13 million from private investors, promising to accelerate her startup’s growth.
Instead, regulators say, she diverted a large portion of that capital for lavish lifestyle purchases.
The SEC complaint says that the funds that were supposed to fuel product development and business expansion were secretly redirected into personal bank accounts.
The filing alleges that it wasn’t a small misuse of cash, but a long-running scheme in which the CEO set up sham business invoices, misreported financials to investors, and essentially treated the company’s money as her own.
Among the personal expenses flagged by the SEC are a luxury house purchase, Caribbean lodging and travel, and high-priced tickets to the Super Bowl.
The SEC is now seeking disgorgement of the ill-gotten gains, along with civil penalties. In its enforcement release, the agency notes that her actions allegedly violated multiple provisions of the securities laws, including investor fraud and misrepresentation.
