Fintech Ceo And Forbes 30 Under 30 Alum Has Been Charged For Alleged Fraud

By now, nan Forbes 30 Under 30 list has go much than a small notorious for nan magnitude of entrants who spell connected to beryllium charged pinch fraud. Notable alumni see FTX laminitis Sam Bankman-Fried, Frank CEO Charlie Javice, Joanna Smith-Griffin, laminitis of nan AI startup AllHere Education, and “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, among others. Now, different personnel of nan database has been deed pinch national charges.

Gökçe Güven, a 26-year-old Turkish nationalist and nan laminitis and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, was charged past week pinch alleged securities fraud, ligament fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated personality theft.

The New York-based fintech startup — which uses nan “Turn Your Rewards into [a] Revenue Engine” tagline — says it tin thief companies create and monetize individual rewards programs. The institution was founded successful 2022, and offers participating firms nan opportunity to gain ongoing gross streams via partner connection sales, Axios previously reported.

Güven was featured successful past year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list. The mag notes successful nan writeup that Güven’s clients included awesome chocolatier Godiva and nan International Air Transport Association, nan waste and acquisition statement that represents a mostly of nan world’s airlines. Kalder besides claims to person enjoyed nan backing of a number of salient VC firms.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that, during Kalder’s seed round successful April of 2024, Güven managed to raise $7 cardinal from much than a twelve investors aft presenting a transportation platform that was rife pinch mendacious information.

According to nan government, Kalder’s transportation platform claimed that location were 26 brands “using Kalder” and different 53 brands successful “live freemium.” However, officials opportunity that, successful reality, Kalder had, successful galore cases, only been offering heavy discounted aviator programs to galore of those companies. Other brands “had nary statement pinch Kalder whatsoever—not moreover for free services,” officials said successful a property merchandise announcing nan indictment. The transportation platform besides “falsely reported that Kalder’s recurring gross had steadily grown period complete period since February 2023 and that by March 2024, Kalder had reached $1.2 cardinal successful yearly recurring revenue.” 

The authorities besides accuses Güven of having kept 2 abstracted sets of financial books. One of those sets included “false and inflated numbers,” and was presented to investors aliases imaginable investors to hide nan “true financial information of nan company,” nan authorities claims. The DOJ besides alleges that Güven utilized lies astir Kalder arsenic good arsenic forged documents to get a class of visa reserved for individuals of “extraordinary ability,” that would let her to unrecorded and activity successful nan United States.

TechCrunch reached retired to Güven done her individual website. The CEO said that she would beryllium sharing a connection astir nan charges connected Tuesday.