EXPLOSIVE: LinkedIn censors John Galt but I publish "Julie Meyer: A history of scandal and lawsuits" #Metootech

By Tom Winnifrith | Wednesday 14 February 2018

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

An ex employee of Ariadne Capital, terming him self John Galt after the Ayn Rand character has already exposed the truth behind the myth that is First Tuesday. In his second post on LinkedIn he now exposed the series of scandals and lawsuits that have marked the career of Julie Meyer MBE of Ariadne. His punishment, someone complained and his account has been suspended. Luckily I copied the posting before that happened and so since I really am a free speech supporting libertarian unlike some folks I could mention...

As the Galt account has now disappeared. I replicate the article in full below so that more of the victims of this woman can be emboldened to come forward. I have had two lawyers letters from this frightful woman threatening me if I publish emails such as this one which expose someone for lying, and Meyer has also sided with those who sent me death threats for expoosing fraud to smear me with a pack of lies that even her own lawyer concedes were actionable. That is no way to treat a journalist. But investigative journalists, employees, suppliers, customers are all treated with contempt by a woman who has been branded the Harvey Weinstein of European tech.

#Metootech

No doubt Julie's hapless lawyer Peter Bradley will say that all that follows is fake news. I think not.

Over to John Galt:

As the old saying goes, "there is no smoke without fire" and in the case of Julie Marie Meyer MBE and her dysfunctional empire consisting of Ariadne Capital, Ariadne Capital Global, Entrepreneur Country Global, ECO2 Fund and ACE Fund 1 this could not be truer.

In December 2017, Ariadne Capital finally went into Administration after posting a loss nearly every year since it was launched.

Julie Meyer and her legal counsel Peter Bradley decried all criticism as FAKE NEWS. The information in this article has been shared with the SFO, FCA and the Administrator.

Here is a brief timeline of some of the main legal challenges and internal turmoil that Julie Meyer has faced over the years - if you have further cases to share please message John Galt:

Oct 1998 - July 2000, First Tuesday not all as it seems

By all accounts First Tuesday was an accidental company that started off as a "glorified cocktail party" and according to one co-founder didn’t get as much of the backlash as maybe it deserved when it collpased. (source: Digital Tide)

Add to that the stories of unpaid wages (source: The Guardian), a massive falling out between Julie Meyer and her co-founders (source: BBC) and of course those crazy membership number that Julie cites and you have the original scandal! (source: LinkedIn article)

July 2002, The FastCompany magazine comment that still resonates 16 years on

In 2002 web design terms, it’s not entirely clear who Manju Patel is or how his/ her comment relates to the piece written by Julie but its relevance is prophetic. Manju if you’re out there we’d appreciate the Lotto numbers. “Having meet Julie a number of times over the past 18 months her actions are very different from the stated aims above. She is interested in the promotion of Julie Meyer plc and making all the money she feels due from all those businesses First Tuesday helped start. Fortunately she has got her just rewards, lots of column inches and no money, just like First Tuesday. Manju Patel - London, England.” (source: FastCompany)

January 2003, The FuckedCompany memos - the missing stationery scandal

Julie's First Tuesday co-founder couldn't help himself from having a dig when he posted a series of blogs about 'Frenetic Julie Meyer' and revealing an online forum discussion about leaked internal Ariadne Capital emails detailing missing stationery and a cancelled Christmas. Julie of course denied everything but anyone who has worked with her knows exactly how she rolls. (source: Nick Denton, FuckedCompany)

2002, Metasource and the illegal M&A work conducted while not FSA approved

Metasource was a piece of M&A work that Ariadne Capital did when it didn't have FSA approval (the predecessor to the FCA, the industry regulator). Not only that, Julie Meyer referred to the deal as 'adding significant value' to Metasource although within just 12 months MetaSource had gone bust and 'merged' with OLB.com (source: FreeLibrary)

That didn't stop Ariadne Capital using MetaSource as a case study on their website until as recently as 2010 - although either through incompetence or deception they chose to use the logo of an entirely different, global corporate MetaSource and not the small business they advised. (source: Ariadne Capital website)

March 2003, NanoMuscle and Ariadne Capital (the non-VC firm that apparently invested £10m)

"One such is Julie Meyer, the founder of the dotcom networking group First Tuesday - who was dubbed "Queen Bee" at the height of the online boom. She has invested $10m in the sector through her venture capital firm Ariadne Capital. Alongside Volkswagen, Meyer has put her cash into NanoMuscle, an early-stage business that hopes to develop miniature motors for the toy and automotive industries." (source: The Telegraph)

"NanoMuscle, based in California, has received a $10m (£6.4m) capital injection from Ariadne Capital, a venture capital group which Ms Meyer founded, VW and Crossbow, another venture capitalist." (source: The Financial Times)

Despite Julie's ability to deceive naive journalists, Ariadne Capital was not a venture capital firm at the time (its fund didn't launch until 2011) nor was it regulated and had never invested in anything. The NanoTechnology press release fails to even mention Ariadne Capitals involvement, which was purely advisory and for which they receive a modest small fee estimated to be around $100,000 (source: Ariadne Capital press release, NanoTechnology press release)

Despite raising over $20m from investors, including a $16m Series C round, NanoMuscle went bust in 2004. (source: Crunchbase, Bloomberg)

2004, Illegal directors loans

In 2004 Julie Meyer breached then company law when she borrowed she legally wasn't allowed too. A note in the financial statements reads: “Included within other debtors due within one year are loans to JM Meyer and BS Rangar, director and former director of the company, amounting to £71,261 and £47,781 respectively... which are not permitted by company law.” (source: originally published in Mail on Sunday)

2006, Bundeep Rangar, Ariadne Capital co-founder departs

It's always tough when co-founders fall out (Julie has fallen out with all six we know of) but it's doubly tough when they are also your boyfriend. Contacted some years ago about fraud allegations at Ariadne Capital, Bundeep refused to comment but said "nothing surprises me with Julie." (source: anonymous former employee) These allegations are currently incomplete and require further corroboration.

2009-2010, SpinVox the tech company with limited tech

SpinVox was a voice-to-text technology company at the centre of the Ariadne Capital portfolio, with the CEO Christina Domecq a protégé of Julie Meyer, who once described SpinVox as “a turbo-charged, over-the-top success story of which the UK should be enormously proud”. (source: TechCrunch)

Then one day an anonymous email landed, citing "phantom revenues", overstated technology that relied on human call centres and outrageous personal spending by Domecq all of which were allegedly charged to the company.

SpinVox was eventually sold to US rival Nuance for $64 million – after taking over $200 million in investment (source: The Kernel, NYT, Guardian) Investors who had backed a company that once boasted world-beating technology ended up with a total of £600 (six hundred) that were divided between the owners of 5.3 million ordinary shares and 1.9 million A shares. (source: BBC)

2009, Dragon's Den, a dragon without any money to invest

Back in 2009 Julie Meyer featured in a short-lived online version of the hit show Dragon's Den for the BBC. One of only two businesses Julie backed on the show was Family Fridge, founded by Lex Deak. Julie made an offer of £20,000 plus 'time' for 30% of the business - which Deak duly accepted Alas the money never arrived, with Julie Meyer disclosing to Ariadne Capital employees that this was due to financial and time pressures of launching the ACE Fund. Julie later expressed her regret stating in 2018 that her failure to invest was down to due diligence and not financial motives. (source: internal Ariadne Capital emails, Julie Meyer twitter) Disclosure of the internal emails is currently restricted by NDA brought by Ariadne Capital.

2009-present, a company when no one ever gets paid on time

Internal company emails sent by Julie Meyer to staff throughout the past nine years reveal almost uninterrupted delays in payment of suppliers and employees. In these emails Julie always provides a reason from blaming IT providers Nasstar, banking providers Coutts and Barclays, investors and her own finance team. (source: internal Ariadne Capital emails) Disclosure of the internal emails is currently restricted by NDA brought by Ariadne Capital.

2010-2011, EveryClick and the £43,000 court case for misrepresentation

In 2010, online donations platform EveryClick, a client of Ariadne Capital accused Julie Meyer of misleading them into believing that Ariadne Capital had a fund that was ready to invest in the business during a fundraising round. EveryClick subsequently withheld £43,000 that Julie claimed for advisory work. As we know from the NanoMuscle fiasco, Julie often misled clients in into believing there an active fund only to never stump up the cash. (source: London County Court)

2009- 2013, ESP/ Global Dawn - the phoenix company where only Ariadne Capital's share holding soared

In 2012, The Mail on Sunday reported on the collapse of yet another Ariadne Capital portfolio company Enrich Social Productions (ESP) with losses of £10m, including £500,000 owed to HMRC. At the same time Global Dawn, a phoenix company emerged. Investors and former employees allege that shareholder value was transferred illegally between companies and that Ariadne Capital was complicit in this fraud. Despite Julie Meyer stating on record that: "we have a two per cent stake in Global Dawn which is a different company... from Enrich Social Productions," the founder of ESP/ Global Dawn and Julie's own internal investment portfolio describe a 'company restructure' with Ariadne Capital's shareholding in the phoenix company remaining unchanged while ballooning in value from £30,000 to £500,000 in a matter of months (source: first published in the Mail on Sunday, internal Ariadne Capital emails) Disclosure of the internal emails is currently restricted by NDA brought by Ariadne Capital.

2012, Ariadne Capital Ltd v. Serageldin, Julie Meyer sues her ACE Fund 1 co-founder

In 2011 Julie Meyer unveiled senior Ariadne Capital Director, Karima Serageldin as her co-founder of the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs (ACE) Fund 1. Unfortunately less than eight months later the pair were in court over an alleged sharing of confidential information with Meyer seeking injunctive relief, delivery up and damages for breach of contract and breach of confidence. (source: All England Reporter/2013/February/ Ariadne Capital Ltd v Serageldin [2013] All ER (D) 291 (Feb)) [2013] EWHC 263 (QB))

2012, Drawing down ACE Fund management fees to pay unrelated salaries of Ariadne Capital employees

In 2011/12, the ACE Fund finalised its second close and first draw down – netting Ariadne (not the ACE Fund) approximately £280,000 after legal and accounting fees, which was immediately used to pay outstanding salaries and debtors. Noting that before a single investment had been made by the Fund, management fees had been transferred to a separate company to pay bills and salaries completely unrelated to the Fund. (source: Ariadne Capital internals emails and accounts)

2000-2013, ACE Fund 1 - the tiny £7.5m fund that took 13 years to launch despite all the hype and bluster

Few things better illustrate Ariadne Capitals perpetual struggles than the fact it took nearly 13 years to launch the £7.5m fund despite annual pronouncements that a £25m would be coming within months. (source: Ariadne Capital website 2001-2013)

October 2013, Julie is back in court, losing both costs and being hit with a restraining order

Osmosis engaged Ariadne Capital for a capital raising initiative. Ariadne failed to deliver any funding and then made claims for fees not earned. When Osmosis refused to pay the fees, Julie took to the legal system to force payment based on spurious claims via threatening the firm with a winding up order despite the firm having raised capital through its own initiatives. Once again Julie was on the losing side, with the court finding in Osmosis’s favour by issuing a restraining order, striking out her petition and awarding costs to Osmosis on an indemnity basis. (source: High Court Chancery Division, Manchester District Registry)

2015, The MBE who misappropriated government loans from the Startup Loans Company to cover imaginary costs

In 2015, The Start Up Loans, chaired by former Dragon James Caan, won a case to reclaim £50,000 Ariadne was supposed to hand out to businesses under a taxpayer-funded scheme to help entrepreneurs. Julie Meyer however argued the costs of the scheme had left Ariadne out of pocket despite having fallen far short of its targets placing only 6 loans. (source: Evening Standard, The Times)

2000-present, building a great company culture by threatening to sue all former employees in to signing NDAs

Julie Meyer once said that strong people do well at Ariadne Capital – perhaps she meant ‘delusional people’ seeing as she’s the only person that’s stayed more than five years. In fact a small team that consistently numbers around 8-12 people has had a turnover of 154 known staff in the past 16 years. When contacting staff about this article, almost every single one had pursued legal action against Julie and Ariadne and not one had had a positive experience. (source: anecdotal, Ariadne Capital website 2000-present). Disclosure of the internal emails and public statements from former employees are currently restricted by NDA brought by Ariadne Capital.

2012-2016, the “hysterical” business champion who fought paying a contractor for three years

In 2012, respected sales executive Rachel Lowe was contracted by Julie Meyer to support Ariadne clients and find sponsorship partners for Entrepreneur Country. After just five months in the role Lowe began to get frustrated by late payment of invoices and eventually received an email from Julie containing untrue allegations of under performance and declaring only half the outstanding invoice amounts would be paid. Lowe took the claim to court only for Julie to unsuccessfully counter-sue for £200,000.

The judge’s verdict in awarding Lowe £64,500.90 added: “Ms Meyer sought in oral evidence to persuade me as to Ms Lowe’s inadequacies. I found her evidence emotional and... at times it bordered on the hysterical." (source: Evening Standard)

2016, this time its accountants Kingston Smith taking Julie to court

In 2016 Julie was again facing legal proceedings, this time for unpaid fees to accountants Kingston Smith. (source: European News)

2016, another day, another law firm taking Julie to court. This time former Entrepreneur Country Global (ECG) sponsor Nabarro

In 2016 Julie Meyer faced further legal issues, this time being pursued for unpaid fees by Nabarro (now CMS). In addition to being a supplier, Nabarro were also a sponsor of Entrepreneur Country and were victims of marketing fraud. (source: European News)

2016, Julie Meyer caught paying for edits to her own Wikipedia page and embarrassingly sues her PR agency

In 2016, Julie Meyer lodged a “joke” lawsuit claiming a reported £100,000 in damages from PR agency Lansons after what it calls a “botched an attempt to improve a Wikipedia entry in a campaign that did its reputation more harm than good.”

Lansons successfully counter sued for £76,oo0 ($94,969) of unpaid invoices and Meyer initially refused to pay up saying that “to have an intern contact Wikipedia was not what we paid for.” (source: Bloomberg, Business Insider)

2009 - present Entrepreneur Country Global (EGS)

Entrepreneur Country Global (EGS), Julie Meyers media and events company, has most recently been in the news over its controversial £4.5m sale from Ariadne Capital to Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs Fund. What makes this valuation scandalous is three key factors:

The original database is the old First Tuesday database with business cards that Julie and employees have hoovered up from conferences, meetings and friends and family. Only a tiny percentage of users on the database ever opted in and most of the data breaches data protection laws.

Julie Meyer claims Entrepreneur Country has over 300,000 subscribers; only it doesn’t. This mythical figure is a work of mathematical deception obtained by adding up the 30,000 names on the database + Julies 224,000 LinkedIn followers (see below for more on this) + all the social media followers of all Ariadne employees. (source: Shareprophets)

The Entrepreneur Country business model is sponsorship – corporate sponsors pay based upon marketing performance. To this end ECG has been committing fraud, regularly misreporting and overselling performance up to 20x higher than was being achieved.

2016, Julie Meyer’s law firm GQ Employment Law who hounded dozens of employees sues Julie

There’s a deep irony that GQ Employment Law, the law firm who hounded dozens of former employees on behalf of Julie Meyer were ultimately the creditor who forced the winding up petition that sent Ariadne Capital in to Administration. (source: Shareprophets, CityA.M.)

November 2016, Entrepreneur Country Global sale to ACE Fund

“…in November 2016, the Company entered into two transactions. The first was the sale of ECG to the ACE Fund for £4,500,000.” (source: Administrators Report)

Remarkable that ECG, a company consisting of an out of date and largely illegally obtained database of around 30,000 email address, with almost no engagement or influence and was valued by Auditors in 2011 at just £200,000 could be sold five years later for nearly 25x. Former employees with knowledge of the operations have described the valuation as “laughable”. (source: internal Ariadne Capital emails and conversations with former employees)

2017, a second ACE Fund investee company Taggstar accuses Julie Meyer of malpractice and fraud

“As advised in the Director’s report provided to the meeting of creditors, it is alleged that during Julie Meyer’s tenure as Taggstar’s sole director, Company funds and advances provided by Digital Media Technologies Limited (“DMT”) were misappropriated and used to fund Ariadne Capital Limited (“Ariadne”).”

“…..It would appear that once funds were received by Taggstar they were immediately transferred to Ariadne.” (source: Taggstar Administrators Report)

Former employees of Ariadne Capital have pointed out that the alleged theft of funds from Taggstar occurred at the same time that Julie Meyer was ordered by the High Court to pay nearly £65,000 to Rachel Lowe. (source: unsubstantiated claims)

September 2014, Entrepreneur Magazine sues over breach of copyright

In 2014, business media giant Entrepreneur Media Inc. sued Ariadne Capital and Entrepreneur Country over use of the ‘Entrepreneur’ brand. They settled out of court without prejudice. (source: United States District Court, Central District of California Case No. 8:12-cv-02168-CJC-AN)

March 2017, Unauthorised deductions from wages ends up in tribunal - Mr C Shodijo v Ariadne Capital Ltd.

The Claimant’s complaints of unauthorised deductions from wages are well founded and the Respondents are ordered to pay to him in respect thereof: (a) Unpaid salary 1/10/16-22/11/16: £10,771 (b) Notice pay 23/11/16-16/12/16: £ 5,137 (c) Holiday pay owing on termination: £ 719 £16,627. (source: Mr C Shodijo v Ariadne Capital Ltd: 2208422/2016)

November 2017, Law firm Clifford Chance becomes the fourth of Julie Meyer’s own lawyers to sue over unpaid fees

In November 2017 Julie was back on the defensive after being sued by law firm Clifford Chance amid a row over unpaid fees. The law firm filed a case against both Meyer and Ariadne Capital at the High Court on November 22.

Meyer alleged that lawsuit she faced was a “casualty of a long drawn out acquisition of Ariadne Capital Ltd (our London operating subsidiary) by the Malta-based [holding company] ACGL and Clifford Chance would be paid for its work at the “time of the acquisition.” Of course that acquisition never happened so a good thing Clifford Chance chose not to wait! (source: FN London)

November 2017, Julie Meyer insists her company is solvent just days before it goes into Administration

In November 2017, Julie Meyer insisted her company was liquid and not probed by MFSA (source: Times of Malta). But the Administrator's report stated that cash at Ariadne as at 31 October 2017 was exactly NIL. The Administrator also notes that "throughout 2017 the company came under increasing creditor pressure". Net assets as of now are estimated at c MINUS £6.8 million. (source: Shareprophets, Administrators Draft Report)

Internal Ariadne Capital emails confirm that the business has been in financial difficulty since the day in launched in 2000, and that by 2014 Julie Meyer was consider placing the company in administration but hadn’t in order to protect her own reputation (source: Ariadne Capital internal emails)

Nov 2017, the disappearing Glassdoor reviews

Apart from Lowe’s lengthy claim, the jobs review website Glassdoor contains 13 comments — purportedly from ex-Ariadne employees — with headings including “don’t work here” and “run for the hills” — and attacking Meyer personally. (source: Evening Standard, Glassdoor). The Ariadne Capital website in conjunction with LinkedIn indicate at least 164 known former employees with no one remaining at the company for more than six year - quite a turnover for a tiny advisory business despite Meyer said: “Deeply ambitious, smart, hard-working, professional people do well at Ariadne, love the firm, and stay for years. We have a great team and a lot of fun together.”

December 2017, calling foul of the Follow the Entrepreneur fake numbers

According to Julie Meyer “more than 50,000 people watched the livestream and 15,000 visited the website” for the 2017 Follow the Entrepreneur Summit in Malta. Only, according to individuals with close knowledge of the event – it didn’t attract even a fraction of that number of online views. In fact, the engagement was so low that the keynote speaker videos on YouTube have attracted under 100 views per video.

Why is this important? Because, the Follow the Entrepreneur Summit is a marketing event, sponsored by organisations based upon online and in person performance. (source: internal Ariadne Capital source, YouTube)

January 2018, Ariadne back in Court v Execute Today ltd run by a former employee

Another day another unpaid employee. This time it was the 2016 'star hire' Ilona Simpson as a "senior advisor and venture partner". (source: EXECUTE TODAY LTD -v- ARIADNE CAPITAL LTD, Shareprophets)

January 2018, Julie Meyers conduct raised in the Parliament of Malta, police to bring charges on three counts

The Honorable Karol AQUILINA asked DALLI HELENA (Minister for European Affairs and Equality):

"Can the Minister tell say whether the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations (DIER) has received complaints and / or investigating claims concerning unpaid wages in respect of the persons and companies whose details are given separately? If so, can the Minister say how much was the number of complaints and requests for investigation and arrived at what stage?"

answer:

"Informed that the Department for Employment and Industrial Relations (DIER) received four requests for an investigation of persons and companies whose details were given separately. Inform the honorable questioner that in three of these cases, the investigation has been concluded and the case will be sent to the police to proceed with the Court. The other case was settled by the Department as to pay the amount due in its entirety." (source: Parliament of Malta, Shareprophets)

January 2018, the Ariadne Capital Administrators are frustrated in the their efforts citing lack of documentation, funds and a large number of complaints against Julie Meyer

“The Joint Administrators have received a large number of complaints regarding the conduct of the director, Julie Meyer….”

“The efforts of the Joint Administrators have also been frustrated by the delay in obtaining information from the director and in delivering up the Company’s books and records….”

“A key issue is that there are currently no funds in the Administration to meet ongoing costs or future expenses….” (source: Administrators Report on Companies House)

January 2018, late night threats to journalists

In January things started to get even more sinister when Ariadne Capitals in-house Counsel Peter Bradley began emailing journalists covering the Administration. One of those contacted was Business Insiders Tech Editor James Cook who commented on Twitter, “Bizarre late night email from the general counsel of Julie Meyer's VC fund Ariadne Capital (I published my story about the UK company going into administration back in December).” (source: James Cook of Business Insider of Twitter)

January 2018, Julie Meyers rocketing LinkedIn followers – despite nearly zero engagement

In January 2018, a New York Times investigation revealed the dozens of celebrities and business leaders had purchased fake social media followers from a bot factory called Devumi in order to appear more popular.

Whilst Julie Meyer was not named by the investigation, Devumi did briefly follow Julie on Twitter at the same time that her number of LinkedIn followers rocketed to 224,000 while engagement rates plummeted to a pathetic 0.01%. One global social media expert we contacted described Julie Meyers LinkedIn followers as “beyond dubious”. Apart from appearing more popular, remember that Julie’s LinkedIn followers accounted for over 60% of Entrepreneur Country’s 300,000 ‘fictitious subscribers’ which were being sold to sponsors as an engaged community. (source: LinkedIn)

January 2018, Julie Meyer breaks LinkedIn rules with defamatory attacks on former employees

In January 2018, Julie Meyer published a series of LinkedIn articles attacking former employees and suppliers, most specifically Amit Pau the former Managing Director of Ariadne Capital. The articles were so unhinged and defamatory that they were deemed in breach of LinkedIn’s policies on harassment and libel and removed from the site. (source: LinkedIn articles)

January 2018, Julie Meyer in court again, suing her cloud-computing provider Nasstar

In January 2018, Julie was back in County Court at Central London, this time in Ariadne Capital Limited v Nasstar (UK) Limited. No information is available on the reason for the case, but given Ariadne’s long running late payment, it seems possible this is another spurious claim to deflect payment of money owed. (source: County Court at Central London)

January 2018, investors question who could trust Julie Meyer

At least six Ariadne Capital founding investors are, or have considered legal action against Julie Meyer or have been subject to threats of legal action from Julie Meyer and her Ariadne group.

”It is difficult to believe anything Julie says in the light of all the allegations that grow in scale daily. ECO2 looks doomed. Who would back her now” (source: anonymous Ariadne Capital investor)

These are just a small portion of some of the scandals and lawsuits Julie Meyer has been engaged in - please message to share your story.

Ends

Thanks to someone, one can only guess whom, John Galt is, pro tem, off air. I am not. Natch Julie Meyer is doing the will of God as she always does so she will need no reminding of Paul's words to the Galatians, Chapter 5 Verse 1 ( King James version). But for those who, unlike Julie, do not walk in the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour, I say to others who feel they want to share their message as part of #Metootech:

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage