We all make bad deals here and there, but JPMorgan has made a really bad one. The financial services company claims that its acquisition of startup Frank was built on a lie in which the young startup owner claimed the company had millions of users.
Frank is a software startup aimed at helping students get the most out of the student loan process by helping them navigate the barrage of confusing forms with a TurboTax-like process. Frank raised $5 million in April 2020 and the startup was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in September 2021 for a then unreported amount of money.
Read more
But the relationship was allegedly built on a lie, and, according to a report from Bloomberg, with JPMorgan now regretting their $175 million purchase of Frank. JPMorgan claimed in a lawsuit filed in December that Frank CEO Charlie Javice swindled the megacorporation in true Elizabeth Holmes fashion when she approached JPMorgan for a sale. When pitching Frank to JPMorgan, Javice reportedly claimed the startup had over 4 million users, when in reality it had closer to 300,000.
“Defendant Charlie Javice founded a small start-up business known as Frank that seemingly had the potential to grow and become a successful enterprise in the future, and appeared to have had early proven success,” JPMorgan says in its complaint against Javice, which…
