I’m trying to not overstate my certainty. I have no idea what situation OP could be describing, and I have no recollection of anything along those lines, but I don’t want to definitively state that nothing like it happened over our decade of operation without knowing more about what’s actually being alleged.
We obviously never intentionally ghost companies, “mine them for information”, etc. The ecosystem is small and we wouldn’t be able to invest in and acquire companies if we didn’t have a reputation for good behavior. (And we’ve invested in dozens.) But maybe some communication got dropped in some particular case or something? I don’t know.
Ah okay thanks for clarifying. It's a strong anonymous accusation, so being clear about it on your end helps a lot. I imagine it'll be hard for anyone here to know what happened.
I don't know anything about anything and am one of the very few people here who never founded a $xB fintech, but this strikes me as weak:
> The ecosystem is small and we wouldn’t be able to invest in and acquire companies if we didn’t have a reputation for good behavior
If you're in a position of power (and money), people will return your calls, regardless of rumors. This is true in all fields, from recruiting to publishing to VC deals, etc.
This is also a line of defense used by serial abusers who always (always!) claim that because they have had successful consensual relationships, there can't be cases where they abused the other party.
> over our decade of operation
Also weak. "We've done so many things. Seen so many people. It's been a long time. I don't recall. Things were different back then."
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That said -- weak defense is just that -- it doesn't mean offense.
We obviously never intentionally ghost companies, “mine them for information”, etc. The ecosystem is small and we wouldn’t be able to invest in and acquire companies if we didn’t have a reputation for good behavior. (And we’ve invested in dozens.) But maybe some communication got dropped in some particular case or something? I don’t know.