What a lame excuse for stealing $3.2M.
They most likely just blew the $3.2M and couldn't manage the project, and ultimately have nothing to show for it.
Very different to stealing.
May be a little different
They wanted to start mass production and they estimated they need $100K. They've got 32 times more and they still didn't do it. Where did the money go? Paid themselves good salaries for few years while sitting there doing nothing?
Err, the whole point was to
start a company based around a product, the same with the vast majority of Kickstarters, because
that's what Kickstarter is for!When you get more company seed money than you expected, thing change, your goals change, and in this case they got outside VC investment which meant
they were likely forced to change goals and direction.
You can easily burn that cash when you are expected by your VC investors to start and manage a "real business", you get a real CEO, you get extra engineers and marketing people etc. Add expensive tooling and other R&D expenses on top of that and the money can go very quickly.
Look at what happened to Jeri Elllsworth's CastAR. Once the did their KS the investors came in and changed the goals of the company, they didn't deliver their original product (but they did give refunds) and ultimately the company flopped and went bankrupt.
Investment is not a donation. Investors expect something in return.
Yes, they
expect a return, but shit happens, and sometimes you are left with nothing.
If this was a public company, they would be sued by investors for the investor fraud.
What fraud took place? Please provide evidence.