Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud

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

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

The New York-based fintech startup — which uses the “Turn Your Rewards into [a] Revenue Engine” tagline — says it tin assistance companies make and monetize idiosyncratic rewards programs. The institution was founded successful 2022, and offers participating firms the accidental to gain ongoing gross streams via spouse affiliate sales, Axios previously reported.

Güven was featured successful past year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list. The mag notes successful the writeup that Güven’s clients included large chocolatier Godiva and the International Air Transport Association, the commercialized enactment that represents a bulk of the world’s airlines. Kalder besides claims to person enjoyed the backing of a fig of salient VC firms.

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

According to the government, Kalder’s transportation platform claimed that determination were 26 brands “using Kalder” and different 53 brands successful “live freemium.” However, officials accidental that, successful reality, Kalder had, successful galore cases, lone been offering heavy discounted aviator programs to galore of those companies. Other brands “had nary statement with Kalder whatsoever—not adjacent for escaped services,” officials said successful a property merchandise announcing the indictment. The transportation platform besides “falsely reported that Kalder’s recurring gross had steadily grown period implicit 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 fiscal books. One of those sets included “false and inflated numbers,” and was presented to investors oregon imaginable investors to fell the “true fiscal information of the company,” the 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 enactment successful the United States.

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