from Hacker News

SEC Charges Rothenberg Ventures in Fraudulent Scheme

by ciscoriordan on 8/20/18, 9:36 PM with 87 comments

by JumpCrisscross on 8/20/18, 9:42 PM
"Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, Rothenberg and Rothenberg Ventures agreed to settle the charges. The settlement is subject to approval by the federal district court for the Northern District of California which would determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties. Rothenberg also agreed to be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply after five years. An SEC order imposing the bar will be instituted following court approval of the settlement" [1].
Besides blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal, Rothenberg also invested "$5 million from Rothenberg Ventures' second and third funds in his own startup company, River Studios" [2].
[1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-160
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenberg_Ventures
by tlrobinson on 8/21/18, 12:04 AM
The "0 lawsuits filed" stat on his website now seems a bit foreshadowing
```
    150 Investments Made
    175 Limited Partners
    5 Years of Experience
    0 Lawsuits Filed
```
http://mikerothenberg.com/
Maybe he can post a "Days since last SEC action" sign in the office.
by AndrewKemendo on 8/20/18, 11:49 PM
I had two meetings with Rothenberg in 2016 before their troubles started and the whole vibe of the place seemed off.
The people who asked me to come in were "partners" who I had good conversations with, but when I came in it was only interns who took the meetings. Now, that's not crazy in the valley, but what is crazy is that the interns had no connection with the partner, had no idea the meeting was going to happen, no background on our company and absolutely no technical or market knowledge around Augmented Reality, which is what they claimed to be experts in. This was in both cases.
After the blow up at the end of 2016, I received an email from yet another "partner" in 2017 asking to meet up. I asked them if anything had fundamentally changed and this was the response:
"In many ways, everything has fundamentally changed haha.
If you're available though, I'd love for you and your co-founder to join us for a Warriors game next week. We're still waiting on the other series to wrap up, but we expect to have a home game Monday night. We have a box at Oracle Arena, and it would be great if you guys could come along."
So clearly they had no problems throwing money around. Seems nothing changed.
Really sad honestly.
by ajiang on 8/20/18, 10:06 PM
Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, Rothenberg and Rothenberg Ventures agreed to settle the charges. The settlement is subject to approval by the federal district court for the Northern District of California which would determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties. Rothenberg also agreed to be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply after five years. An SEC order imposing the bar will be instituted following court approval of the settlement.
Fascinating, but not surprising, that it settled right away. I am curious whether the settlement details would be made available in any way.
by rahimnathwani on 8/20/18, 10:52 PM
I'm curious to know:
- Does the firm and/or the individual have enough money? i.e. will the settlement, once paid, make investors whole?
- Why does stealing $7 three times get someone a life sentence, but stealing $7MM once get zero jail time?
by aphextron on 8/20/18, 10:51 PM
I went to Founders Field day in 2016, and I have to say from the vibe of that event this doesn't surprise me at all. It was literally like being in an episode of Silicon Valley.
I do worry what this means for their incubator program though. They've been one of the few funds willing to throw a lot of dumb money at VR projects that just sound cool, and I'm all for that.
by ilaksh on 8/20/18, 10:49 PM
I think if you steal millions of dollars you should go to prison. And a fraud like this should have the same type of punishment as other types of theft.
by philip1209 on 8/20/18, 10:01 PM
Can somebody explain whether this can still lead to criminal prosecution?
As I recall from the Theranos stuff - the SEC reached a similar settlement with Elizabeth quickly [1]. My understanding is that they want to protect the markets and get bad actors banned without years of trials. But then, the DOJ came in filed separate charges that will likely take much longer to prosecute, but have the potential for more severe punishment such as prison term.
So - is this a sign that more significant trouble is coming for Rothenberg?
[1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41
[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/theranos-founder-and-fo...
by jakelarkin on 8/20/18, 10:41 PM
I wonder if this precocious racket will pay out over Rothenberg's lifetime vs. just banking his pedigree and network on some boring low risk career track. He's currently ahead a few million but his reputation is toast.
by gumby on 8/20/18, 11:04 PM
They seemed like clowns to me (including calling to ask us to come pitch, setting up a time, and then forgetting about it when we showed up). Seeing them at industry events they didn't seem like they knew what they were doing. So how did they get LPs?
by person_of_color on 8/21/18, 3:19 AM
Sounds fun! Anyone move to IC engineer to tech VC without being part of a startup exit?
by dang on 8/20/18, 10:32 PM
There's also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804063, which has a bit more background info.
by tomc1985 on 8/21/18, 7:36 AM
Did he really leave lorem ipsum text under his testimonials?
Cause google translate returns garbage... blah blah blah "Nam mourning for the Playstation notebook" ... what?
by ProAm on 8/20/18, 9:45 PM
7 million sounds like a drop to settle for, plus likely a small fine.
by jhabdas on 8/21/18, 10:50 AM
%s/Rothenberg/Rothstein/g