SoftBank Accused of Deliberately Trashing Social Media App

Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund has been accused of deliberately “destroying” a social media company it once valued at more than $1 billion to protect its image, the Financial Times reported.

The tech investment giant allegedly invented a “flagrant, outrageous lie” that the app – IRL – was almost entirely populated by bots to give it an excuse to close the struggling start-up down in June, the report went on.

The claim was made in a lawsuit filed by IRL, which saw $150m of investment from SoftBank, on Wednesday. SoftBank is already suing IRL’s former chief executive Abraham Shafi claiming he had lied about the app’s user base.

Read the full story: The Financial Times

By Sean O’Meara

Also on AF:

SoftBank Handed App With Fake User Base $170m – engadget

SoftBank Reveals $5.2bn Loss as WeWork Demise Adds to Woes

OpenAI, SoftBank, Apple Designer Ive in ‘AI iPhone’ Talks – FT

After Arm’s Bumper Launch, Who’s Next in SoftBank’s IPO Pipeline?

Sean O'Meara

Sean O'Meara is an Editor at Asia Financial. He has been a newspaper man for more than 30 years, working at local, regional and national titles in the UK as a writer, sub-editor, page designer and print editor. A football, cricket and rugby fan, he has a particular interest in sports finance.