The biggest bank in America acquired a FAKE startup for ₹1,450 Cr just 3 years ago 🤯
This is the story of 28 yo Charlie Javice, the founder of Frank , who pulled off one of the boldest startup frauds in recent history.
And what she did should make every investor rethink how they approach due diligence.
Frank was positioned as a fintech platform helping students navigate financial aid applications. Think of it as the “TurboTax for FAFSA” — simple, fast, student-first.
When J.P. Morgan came knocking, Charlie claimed the platform had over 4.25 million users. In reality, it had less than 300,000.
To bridge the gap, she didn’t just tweak a metric or inflate an MAU graph. She paid a data science professor to fabricate a user database.
She even bought a list of student emails to make it look legitimate.
And it worked. JPMorgan, with its army of analysts and legal teams, still acquired the company for $175M (₹1,450 Cr)
That’s the scary part.
This wasn’t a naive investor or an early-stage seed bet.
This was one of the most sophisticated institutions in the world and they missed the most basic checks 🤷🏻♂️
It’s easy to laugh at the fraud. Harder to admit why it succeeded.
Because the moment a founder tells a story we want to believe, we stop asking uncomfortable questions.
Due diligence today has become about validating documents, not stress-testing the narrative.
Real diligence means going beyond the numbers and asking whether the business actually makes sense.
If a fake startup can clear JPMorgan’s filters, it’s time the rest of us admit: the 🚩 aren’t always hidden. We just choose not to look.