Indian-origin venture capitalist Ash Arora has stirred up a storm on social media after publicly calling out alleged fraudulent practices by two Indian startup founders in the San Francisco tech ecosystem. Arora, a partner at LocalGlobe and a Forbes 30 Under 30 (Europe – Finance) honoree, shared her experience in a viral post on X, accusing the founders of inflating metrics and fabricating client associations.
“Met two founders in SF this month, both turned out to be frauds,” she wrote. According to her, one founder was subletting a rented apartment and falsely projecting the rent income as startup revenue, while the other claimed that Amazon and Google had signed Letters of Intent with his company, despite the tech giants reportedly having no knowledge of such deals.
Have met two founders in SF this month. Both fraud:
— Ash Arora (@asharoraa) July 8, 2025
1. Is subletting a rented apartment and showing that as revenue for his startup
2. Is claiming Amazon and Google are clients who have signed LOIs when they have never even heard of them
What’s common among them? Both desi men…
“What’s common among them? Both desi men. Beware of these people,” she added. Arora further claimed that four venture capitalists reached out to her and correctly guessed the names of the two founders in question. “Is this Soham Parekh 2.0? We need a BS radar community out here,” she said, referencing a past controversy involving alleged startup fraud.
Who is Ash Arora?
Ash Arora is an Indian-origin venture capital investor and a partner at LocalGlobe, one of Europe’s early-stage VC firms. She rose to prominence after being named in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 (Europe) list for Finance and Venture Capital in 2024. Raised in Delhi, Ash graduated in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women in 2017. She began her professional journey at Citi before moving into the blockchain space, eventually leading investments at Polygon Ventures, where she managed a $100 million fund supporting Web3 and blockchain startups. In November 2022, she joined LocalGlobe, becoming one of its youngest partners, with a focus on investments in blockchain, AI, and frontier technologies.
‘What’s the point of including their race?’
The internet quickly reacted to the post. A user said, “A sample of two. What’s the point of including their race?.” Another noted, “Generalize a race off of a sample set of 2? Why would a brown male founder even want to take your money? Do better.”
“Agent to detect and keep a LIVE list if the company fundamental patterns indicate that it’s a fraud,” claimed a user. “Other thing in common is they’re in your network. Look at how and get rid of those nodes. I’ve seen no founder fraud correlation with ethnicity, but generally immigrants and older less willing to fudge truth. As for how common, first is rare. Stuff like second common every cycle,” stated another user. A netizen claimed, “The ‘desi men’ part is a spicy take, but honestly, the patterns of fraud in SF are pretty universal. Desperation or greed, it always comes back to the same stuff.”
