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by matt_the_bass 2978 days ago
That sucks but it is possible your conclusion is not correct. Possibly:

- Vc was looking at you bc they already have experience in that market. Maybe they were considering hedging their bets with multiple companies with similar products but decided not to move forward. Now they are just too busy to get back to you. Annoying but not nefarious.

- how did you find your customers? Could the other company have found them the same way? If your product is better then your customers should stay with you. If not, maybe your product is lacking somehow.

- the VC is a D##K and did what you suspect. In that case did you vet the vc at all? Did you check who were their other companies for possible conflicts of interest?

With all due respect, an investor saying their interested verbally does not make for a firm investment.

2 comments

Please... it's quite obvious the VC screwed him:

-The VC firm ONLY cared about the startup's CUSTOMER data. Not the FINACIAL data.

-The startups's customers started getting emails afterwards.

-The VC not only stopped contacting the startup afterwards, the VC refused to answer them.

It's quite impossible that the VC downright stole the customer data. There seems to be a mixup where our customer data got into their system. Not sure how to ask them to purge our data without seeming like an asshole.
He doesn't even return your calls and you are worried about coming across like an asshole? Why would He even care about deleting the data? He will tell you that it has already been erased.

I guess you could make another "startup" with fake clients and be legally prepared to screw him. Luckily, He will ask for the same info. If the fake contacts are contacted by your competitors, you can use it as proof.

True, a verbal commitment is not a deal and the VC had even given an email confirmation.

We found our customers through facebook groups.

Maybe your first scenario is correct. and maybe the other startups found our customers the same way. There is no way to prove anything. That's why all I want is for the VC to delete our list from their emails and servers