During a recent earnings presentation, SoftBank Founder Masayoshi Son (pictured here in 2019) said the company will go into “defense” mode as a result of myriad headwinds that have roiled global markets.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images
Softbank’s Vision Fund filed suit against the founders of one of its portfolio companies on Monday, alleging that they artificially inflated user metrics, lied to the fund about performance and bilked the fund for millions.
Buzzy social media startup IRL launched in Apr. 2021 and was seemingly “one of the fastest growing social media apps for Generation Z,” the complaint in San Francisco federal court alleges.
Softbank was invested in the company thanks to its apparently low cost, “strong” user engagement that left it “well positioned for further viral growth” in the same way that Facebook and Twitter exploded.
In May 2021, a month after the company…
