Techstars Aerospace Alums Gather for a Day of Partnership and Project Reveals
Tami Abdollah
Tami Abdollah is dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator's latest class announced partnerships with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Maxar Technologies and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) North America, among others, at Wednesday's long-awaited showcase. It was the culmination of months of focused and sometimes grueling remote work.
The program aims to help companies achieve several years of commercial growth within three months, with mentorship from the accelerator's partners, including the U.S. Air Force, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Lockheed Martin, Israel Aerospace Industries North American (IAI), SAIC and Maxar Technology.
The class of 10 companies come from Los Angeles, Toronto, Poland and states across the U.S. Among them is a company that provides a user-friendly AR/VR platform for use in education and training, a developer of an advanced AI system for data scientists as well as an air contamination and quality monitoring system.
"This is cutting edge development, and we need it for space exploration," said Tom Cwik, who manages the space technology office at JPL.
Because of the pandemic, Wednesday's Demo Day was held over YouTube, rather than in-person at the California Science Center. "It's kind of like the first day of the rest of your life," said the program's managing director Matt Kozlov.
Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator - Demo Day 2020 (Updated) www.youtube.com
Here are some of today's key announcements:
Prewitt Ridge Partners with JPL
Los Angeles-based Prewitt Ridge co-founder and CEO Steve Massey joined forces with his co-founder, Zeke Brechtel, both formerly with SpaceX to build an integrated software platform that aims to remove data duplication, lower the likelihood of error and let companies work faster.
Prewitt Ridge announced that JPL will be its first major external user in the aerospace and robotics space, which is a target market for the company. Massey said the company has been able to gain a deeper understanding of JPL's needs, approaches and challenges through the accelerator program. The company will help with a small research and development project, building the robotic arm for the lunar lander payload — which helps deploy equipment onto the moon's surface.
Urban Sky's Stratospheric Balloon Gets PreSeed Investment
In less than a year, Urban Sky co-founder and CEO Andrew Antonio said the company has "designed, built and flown the first-ever reusable high altitude balloon and collected sample aerial imagery from the stratosphere."
Its microballoon is reusable and reduces the cost of high-resolution remote sensing and weather-related data capture from its stratospheric vantage point.
Antonio announced that Urban Sky oversubscribed its pre-seed round with investments from New Stack, L.A.-based VC firm TenOneTen, Catapult and Techstars. The company also won a $250,000 cash grant from the state of Colorado as a top startup in the state and a small business innovation research contract from JPL to further develop its tech for wildlife monitoring applications. Antonio also said that Maxar has stated its interest in partnering with Urban Sky as an imaging subcontractor. Lastly, Atonio announced the company's first commercial customer and partner, Arturo, to conduct its one-year imaging pilot program over Colorado.
vRotors Gets a Slew of Partnerships
L.A.-based vRotors, which provides a platform that aims to make it easier to control a remote robotic device from a PC, Mac, mobile phone or VR headset, from anywhere in the world.
Co-founder and CEO Neil Malhotra announced vRotors' first partnerships with Dish Network to help with remote tower inspections; with Maxar Technologies to do real-time, high-resolution 3-D map applications; and Honeywell to do remote supervision of its autonomous air taxi fleets. vRotors is also working with IAI to automate the landing process for their next moon mission.
Lux Semiconductors Gets Federal Backing
Co-founder and CEO Shane McMahon announced that Lux, which has developed a flexible silicon wafer to help miniaturize electronics, has raised more than $200 million from major federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.
The company has been collaborating with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on technical matters and is also working on several cooperative research agreements with strategic defense agencies focused on advanced microelectronics. McMahon said the company has received support from five of the top aerospace and defense firms and is partnering with two of them on "joint proposals to embed our electronics into their systems."
Bifrost Will Generate Martian Landscape
Charles Wong, the CEO and co-founder of Bifrost, which helps AI developers generate labelled datasets faster, announced Wednesday that it will be working with JPL to generate synthetic Martian terrain with the aim of helping to achieve the dream of safely landing a helicopter on Mars. Wong said the company is also in talks with Rolls Royce to enable new capabilities in aerospace.
Holos Will Bring Its Virtual Reality Training to the Air Force, IAI
The Madison, Wisconsin-based company Holos aims to "give people agency over the virtual experience" so that they can create immersive education and training environments without having to outsource to a firm.
The company received a $750,000 small business innovation grant from the U.S. Air Force to work on developing a virtual maintenance and repair training system for the F-35 out of Southern California's Edwards Air Force base. It's also contracted to develop a prototype to integrate the command and control of space, air and cyber assets for the U.S. Air Force. Holos also announced that it will be working with IAI to explore developing a next generation multi-domain command and control system powered through AR and VR that can be used for training.
___
Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter @latams. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.
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As soon as I stepped into the new Amazon Fresh store in Woodland Hills an employee asked if I wanted to shop with a regular cart or use their 'dash cart.'
The 35,000 square foot store that opened to the public on Friday is Amazon's first so-called smart grocery store as the e-commerce giant attempts to remake in-person shopping and push into the supermarket space.
<p>The dash cart is the center of that effort. The toy-like cart has a screen in the middle of the handles that walks you through a tutorial on how to process the different items and which also allows you to see the total price of your trip as you're shopping. It's bright green and black and smaller than your average grocery cart with no place for the dangling legs of a toddler. </p><p>I grabbed the dash cart. To start I had to open my Amazon app to sync it to the cart. </p><p>I held my account's QR code in front of a camera affixed to the cart and once scanned, the cart made a pinging sound and told me I could start shopping. Now everything I put in the cart would be charged to my account.</p><p>The cart is not required, though. And shoppers can still opt to go through a checkout stand with a clerk. </p><p>Amazon Fresh opened their store to the public last week after previously being invitation only.</p><p>The Woodland Hills location at 6245 Topanga Canyon Blvd is likely a window into the future of Amazon grocery shopping. It allows customers to shop in-store, pick up Amazon Fresh online orders within the hour and even includes a return drop off center. It comes in the middle of a pandemic in which the online retailer has seen their grocery sales triple year-over-year.</p><p>At the same time, growth of their Prime membership which is key to the grocery store experience is accelerating.</p>
<p><br/></p><p>When I arrived on a Monday morning, the aisles were eerily quiet. Clerks that normally stock aisles or buzz around the cash register were nearly non-existent. But Alexa seemed to be everywhere.</p><p>She's also available at different stands throughout the store to help customers locate specific items.</p><p>The store has a variety of produce, a meat and seafood section, and even a kitchen area where you can pick up prepared items like sushi or pizza. It felt like Whole Foods cafeteria-like layout but a bit less expensive. The chicken tenders looked especially appealing.</p><p>The different aisles carry your typical brand name items like Quakers and Coca-Cola, but there's often signs pointing out items that are locally grown and produced. Across the store, Amazon had their own packaged goods sprinkled throughout, including in the meat and seafood section, which was filled with Fresh-branded options.</p><p>Fresh produce has a number code that needs to be entered into the monitor on the dash cart, once detected and placed in the cart it weighs the item to give the total price. Barcode items are scanned as you place them in the cart through the use of the cameras and sensors placed in the front area of the cart.</p><p>Both options release a ding sound to let you know the item has been added correctly, but the process is hardly seamless. I had to re-enter items like my strawberry flavored Chobani a few times until the cart was able to detect it.</p><p>The cart itself was very small as it can only hold two bags before overflowing with items which is not ideal for a family looking to shop for a week's worth of groceries.</p><p>Yet, the simplicity of the checkout almost felt unreal. To checkout, all I had to do was walk through the dash cart lane. Once I walked over a mat, an automated message appeared on my cart monitor showing my bill. That was it. I was done. But the experience was so new, I wasn't even sure that I paid. I asked the clerk, 'Oh, is that it?" Yep, he replied and told me to watch my email for a receipt.</p><p>I grabbed my bags and walked out, having minimal interaction with humans.</p>
Inside Amazon Fresh Grocery Store
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQyODU0MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzYxNDQ5NH0.WV1TIlVYmQGPwqGMXoMOU3Ib5ftm1mse7xbXwfYhW8o/image.jpg?width=980" id="86c7d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ee49b38adfcaefd8ddf853e5d5c30cfd" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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Green Rush: The Incredible Rise and Collapse of LA's Genius Fund, a $164M Cannabis Startup
Aug 04 2020
Their Russian investor was dead.
On a late Tuesday night in early May, the billionaire Russian coal tycoon, Dmitry "Dima" Bosov stopped answering phone calls and messages. When his wife, Katerina, arrived at their mansion in the suburbs of Moscow, she found her 52-year old husband locked in the family's home gym, dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the head.
<p>
The owner of multiple Russian coal companies had a penchant for ice hockey, snowboarding and placing big bets on businesses. More than 6,000 miles to the west, Bosov had been trying to build a new foothold in cannabis.
</p><p>
The Genius Fund was run by Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden, two twenty-something friends who had lofty ambitions of dominating the cannabis market first in the U.S. and then internationally, with a roughly $164 million bet from Bosov.
</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">Their idea was to create a vertically integrated company that owns its own supply chain, producing, distributing and selling cannabis products more efficiently. It's a model that has proven particularly effective for other cannabis companies like MedMen, Caliva and Natura, which have raised millions in investor funding.</span><br/></p><p>
Genius Fund, however, blew the money in less than two years. Company executives ran up five-figure tabs, built lavish offices and manufacturing facilities, and hired armed security in their pursuit to build a cannabis empire, an investigation by dot.LA found. In the end, the Russian-funded venture crumbled.
</p>
Editor's Note
<p><em></em><em>The story is pieced together from interviews with more than 40 former employees and business associates, active and retired county officials, as well as federal and county law enforcement; state court records, arbitration, arrest and corporate records in the U.S. and Canada; other public records in six California counties; Genius Fund corporate records and emails. Some former employees and business associates spoke to dot.LA on condition that their names not be mentioned out of fear of reprisals.</em></p><p>This is first story in our "Green Rush" series. Read more:</p><p><a href="https://dot.la/genius-fund-cannabis-startup-2646866270" target="_self">Part 2: Growing Pains in Plumas County</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/cannabis-products-genius-fund-2646866366.html" target="_self">Part 3: A Line of Failed Products</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/green-rush-genius-fund-2646866354.html" target="_blank">Part 4: What Went Down in Adelanto</a> | <a href="https://dot.la/dmitry-bosov-genius-fund-2646866356.html" target="_self">Part 5: The Sudden Death of Dmitry Bosov And His Dream of a California Cannabis Empire</a></p><p>Stiegler and Borden publicly referred to Genius Fund as a private equity fund, but the company functioned more like a family office for their high wealth investor, or a conglomerate that rolled up into one parent entity. They headquartered Genius Fund originally in Venice, California, and later, Culver City.</p><p><span></span>Genius Fund's expansive structure included more than 50 corporate entities, mostly limited liability companies, spread across farming operations, CBD and THC manufacturing processes, product development, delivery operations and a retail front, according to domestic and international corporate filings. Each of Genius Fund's main operational entities had its own CEO or general manager.<br></p>
<p>
At its peak, the overall business employed more than 300 employees and contractors, corporate records showed.
</p><p>
Genius Fund was one of dozens of new marijuana-related startups that have sprouted up in recent years after California legalized recreational marijuana. Like others chasing the "green rush," Genius Fund wanted to position itself as an early giant in California's marijuana market, which is the world's largest legal pot market, <a href="https://bdsa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019_BDS_California_CIB_Exec_Summ_Final_With_A.pdf" target="_blank">according to 2019 industry reports</a>. It's an industry that has generated nearly $3.1 billion in spending in the Golden State alone.
</p><p>
The company was beset with problems, according to former employees from all levels and areas of the organization who agreed to speak to dot.LA on condition that they not be named in the story out of fear of reprisals.
</p><p>
"Not one person at the top knew what they were doing," said a former employee — a sentiment that was echoed by many of their former colleagues and repeated by the company's now ex-CEO in his more than $3.5 million lawsuit against the company and its Russian oligarch owner filed in April in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.
</p><h2><span></span>Kismet
</h2><p>
Ari Stiegler and Gabriel Borden first met while in college. They reconnected in early 2018 at a crypto-scene party that Borden threw in his family's Santa Monica, California, home. It was kismet in a way.
</p><p>
Business associates described Borden, now 26, as a shy, trusting and empathetic guy. The son of the executive producer and creator of Disney's "High School Musical," Borden had access to his father's Rolodex, according to his associates. Stiegler, now 28, was described by associates as brash and cocky, someone who knew how to talk a big game and sell investors on a vision, even if he may have known little about the industry.
</p><p>
Both were young serial entrepreneurs working out of the heart of Silicon Beach.
</p><p>
Early in their relationship, Stiegler arranged for Borden to be made an advisor for a cryptocurrency exchange company, then called Samsa Technologies Inc., which Stiegler co-founded in 2017 with another friend. Stiegler already had a history of jumping quickly from one business venture to another in search of hitting it big, according to former investors and business partners.
</p><p>
Stiegler spent office hours planning his own side businesses or watching YouTube videos, a former investor in one of Stiegler's earlier ventures, Rob Sciama, said.
</p><p>
Borden was good at nurturing relationships and bringing people to the table. He had always been attracted to business and not afraid of reaching out to industry leaders, including major business executives and VPs, while at Loyola Marymount University. While in school, he helped get InterWallet off the ground. That company would become Van Nuys-based Maya Labs, which provides a self-service kiosk payment solution for the unbanked and underbanked.
</p><p>
Several months after their first meeting, they met with a possible Russian investor, Dmitry Borisovich Bosov, a contact of one of Borden's classmates at Loyola Marymount, to talk about a possible investment opportunity.
</p><p>
Stiegler said in an interview that Bosov wanted "good entrepreneurs in L.A. to run a cannabis company" for him.
</p><p>
"He really liked us and basically said, 'Hey, you guys need to quit your companies and come work for me,'" Stiegler told dot.LA. "It's not every day that someone offers to invest millions of dollars into a company. So we were like, 'OK, yeah, sure we can do this right now'."
</p><p>
Stiegler's colleague, Borden, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
</p><p>
The new opportunity came with the promise of $160 million investment for the cannabis business even though neither he nor Borden had any experience in the industry, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting.
</p><p>
With the promise of millions and a hefty chunk to start, the company called Genius Fund was underway.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzMTMxMC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0Mjc1MTg2MH0.vH_CP-saH9uo90FDPify-kfDvIzPBeMzp_YIOBocEMQ/image.png?width=980" id="599fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c9e9a5f050624ec03e76a4cc1b7f6333" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">A screenshot of Genius Fund's website from August 2018 shows the company's leadership team. Top left to bottom right: Ari Stiegler, Gabriel Borden, Danny Abyzov, Andrew Dillard, Andrey Pirumov, Daniel Sarpa and Chris Clifford.</small>
</p><h2>A Ticket to 'Generational Wealth'</h2><p>
The early days of the company were an exciting time. Stiegler served as the company's CEO and CFO, while Borden served as secretary, according to state corporate records. But they referred to themselves as managing partners, according to multiple employees and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180821132251/https://www.geniusfund.com/" target="_blank">company's website</a>. Two Russian executives were also referred to as managing partners at Genius Fund. One was Bosov's friend, Andrey Pirumov, who headed up marketing, and the other was Borden's college classmate, Danny Abyzov, who knew Bosov through his father, Mikhail Abyzov, another Russian oligarch.
</p><p>
Abyzov, the father, once served as a minister in former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's cabinet and was arrested in March 2019 for allegedly embezzling $62 million and depositing the money in foreign banks, per <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/russian-ex-minister-arrested-on-fraud-charges" target="_blank">Fox Business News</a> and other media <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/former-russian-minister-abyzov-pleads-not-guilty-ready-to-cooperate/29845781.html" target="_blank">reports</a>. Abyzov <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/former-russian-minister-abyzov-pleads-not-guilty-ready-to-cooperate/29845781.html" target="_blank">pleaded not guilty</a> and <a href="https://ria.ru/20200714/1574333108.html" target="_blank">Russian state media reports</a> that he remains jailed. His attorney did not reply to an emailed request for comment. Abyzov's duties as a cabinet minister had been to make Russian government transparent and accountable, according to <a href="http://government.ru/en/persons/201/" target="_blank">Russian government records</a>.
</p><p>
The son's executive role at Genius Fund ended after his father's arrest, several former employees said.
</p><p>
Friends and business associates said they heard Stiegler say that Genius Fund was his ticket to "generational wealth." He and Borden focused on lining up new hires and possible partners to start work.
</p><p>
Stiegler hired his roommates and frat brothers from the University of Southern California, some of whom he plucked out of jobs as a manager at a pizza joint, a worker in a mailroom, a busboy and bartender, to become analysts or work specialized roles like growing 1,000 acres of hemp, at Genius Fund's various entities, according to their LinkedIn profiles and interviews with former employees. Many made more money than they had ever made in their lives, former employees said in interviews.
</p><p>
From leased cultivation fields to manufacturing facilities for CBD and THC, product lines, even a brand incubator and a retail store, by the fall of 2019, the multi-faceted company operations were mostly up and running.
</p><p>
It was a time of fast growth, with millions in investor funds — as much as $18 to $20 million — wired every few weeks from Bosov's company in Russia, corporate records reviewed by dot.LA show. Russian investors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/kukushkin-giuliani-russia-cannabis-marijuana.html" target="_blank">have flocked</a> to the cannabis industry in the U.S. as traditional banks have shied away from it, even though the plant is illegal in their homeland.
</p><p>
Many employees left jobs at well-known brands, including places like MedMen, to work for Genius Fund.
</p><p>
"Everything was optimistic, in a 'things are about to take off' sort of way," said a former employee.
</p><p>
The company's early hires worked out of two live-work apartments in Venice, right by the beach. When Bosov and his wife visited around last spring, one of the apartments — a one-bedroom, one-bath — was so clogged with office furniture and desks it was difficult to move around. Neighbors complained about dozens of people going in and out all day, according to a person with direct knowledge.
</p><p>
Genius Fund's executives had high ambitions and needed bigger digs. Its roughly 35 staffers moved into a new 12,895 square foot, three-story office building with skylights, thermal ash hardwood flooring and floor-to-ceiling windows in Culver City in the spring. The parking lot featured a Tesla supercharging station.
</p><p>
Genius Fund paid $2 million in cash upfront to lease the property, along with two months of rent, at roughly $65,000 per month, according to corporate records and two former employees with direct knowledge of the lease terms.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyOTM3Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDE1MzYzOH0.Z_TzFHNhKcytBLo8H2388-GoAMlXidsR2RsZiEscF2A/image.jpg?width=980" id="b460c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e00908e95e3abd8bf2ab1b099d0ac47b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The Genius Store at 7569 Melrose was the only store the company opened.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo by Tami Abdollah</small>
</p><h2>The High Life</h2><p>
In the early days, Stiegler and Borden traveled every few weeks to places such as Forte dei Marmi, Italy to meet with their Russian investor and to party on yachts. Stiegler also traveled at Bosov's request to Russia and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, where Bosov frequently stayed.
</p><p>
The two created a high-life culture, regularly flying in private jets, former employees said. To wow an investor, company executives rented a catamaran. Stiegler enjoyed meals out at expensive restaurants, according to two business associates, and donned a pricey Rolex he said Bosov gave him for his birthday.
</p><p>
Genius Fund executives bought both business and non-business items with company funds, including luxury vehicles such as Escalades and Teslas, "daily lunches that would regularly cost in excess of $1,500" and same-day business class one-way tickets "without any business need for such wasteful spending," according to allegations in Genius Fund's ex-CEO Francis Racioppi's whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the company and Bosov.
</p><p>
Stiegler said the $1,500 was for a meal service for employees at the company. He added that he, Borden and Pirumov all had an ownership interest in the company, but Bosov was the majority owner and signed off on all investments and hiring decisions.
</p><p>
"He's the boss, but, like, we're here to, you know, execute his objectives on the ground," Stiegler said. "I was kind of just a fancy employee really."
</p><p>
When someone needed to be picked up at the airport, company officials realized they didn't have a "Genius Mobile." So the company purchased a new black Mercedes Sprinter with customizations that included fancy upholstery with Genius Fund's logo and a flat-screen TV, former employees said.
</p><p>
Genius Fund leadership spent money "recklessly," with one company executive insisting on purchasing desks, computers and monitors for more than 50 potential employees who the company had no immediate plans to hire, according to allegations in the ex-CEO's court documents.
</p><p>
"Bosov was giving a lot of money with very little questions," former executive Evan Kagan said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image image-crop-16x9">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUyOTYxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjkwNTk1OX0.hH1k49JJloH39UnBo485E8zAJKI3ut2dgcAR4p_4jQk/image.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C225%2C0%2C145&height=700" id="4f23e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b8f1ebd69bad5157b9a0474a53e03314" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">The interior of Genuis Fund's Mercedes Sprinter van with custom upholstery.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo provided by a source who prefers to remain anonymous.</small>
</p><p>
Employees charged personal expenses like spa visits to their company cards, according to former employees with direct knowledge. Another Genius Fund employee used the company-issued credit card to donate $2,800 to the Trump Victory PAC in Massachusetts, according to <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?committee_id=C00618389&contributor_name=matt+cook&two_year_transaction_period=2020&min_date=07%2F01%2F2019&max_date=08%2F31%2F2019" target="_blank">Federal Election Commission data</a>. Corporate records show a matching charge on a Genius Fund Amex card.
</p><p>
Meanwhile, personal items like surfboards, dozens of voice recorders and a Gita robot, were purchased by Genius Fund for Bosov and shipped or couriered to him in Russia or Italy, the ex-CEO's lawsuit alleges.
</p><p>
"Yes, we bought a Tesla, but it was Dima's personal Tesla and he repaid us for it," Stiegler said. "Yes, we bought him a surfboard for his birthday. But, whatever. It's like a $800 surfboard and he invested a ton of money in the company."
</p><p>
In addition to the Tesla, former employees said, Bosov utilized the company's staff for upkeep and maintenance of the couple's Beverly Hills residence, the lawsuit states. His wife used her Genius Fund American Express card on high-fashion shopping trips at Chanel in Monaco and Luisa Via Roma in Florence, Italy, according to company records.
</p><p>
"Were funds that were sent into the company bank account used for personal things that Dima and his family needed in L.A.? Yes," Stiegler said. "If they needed a car to drive around, we bought him a car. When they went to dinner, they used the company credit card but then they would reimburse the company," he added. "They didn't have anyone to be their helpers in L.A. We were their helpers."
</p><p>Inside the company, a toxic culture was forming, according to former employees who were there.<br/></p><p>
Genius Fund hired models and nightclub dancers to dress in skimpy clothing for its exhibits at trade shows, former employees said.</p><p><span></span>Multiple former business colleagues told dot.LA they heard Stiegler make sexist, demeaning comments about women, for example, stating women aren't as skilled at business as men are. Former employees said they saw Stiegler look women up and down, use them as props to ease business relationships, and make comments about what women wore and their appearance. Former employees also remember hearing that a female executive assistant was upset after Stiegler noted a scheduled hookup with a "hot Swedish" chick on his work calendar. A friend of Stiegler's remembers him bragging and laughing as he recounted the same story.
</p><p>
Stiegler denied those characterizations.
</p><p>
"Absolutely not," he said. "I come from a nice Jewish family, you don't do that, you don't treat employees like that or say rude things."
</p><p>
Former business associates described Stiegler as someone who didn't care what anyone thought, so long as his actions could be justified legally.
</p><p>
By the end of 2019, Genius Fund planned for the cannabis empire to be up and running and already in the black.
</p><p>
The company grew a complicated infrastructure, with roughly 20 active entities, each with its own books, and multiple bank accounts that former employees said never appeared to be used for operations. dot.LA found in public records more than 50 business entities, including one in Canada, that Genius Fund registered or acquired during its less than two years in operation.
</p><p>
Amit Sharma, CEO of FinClusive and former U.S. Treasury official who dealt with money laundering said that generally — not about Genius Fund — having upward of 50 plus different entities seems excessive for a new startup. But, he added, some companies do create sub-entities for potential future spinoffs, mergers or acquisitions of other businesses, and to protect intellectual property or avoid taxation.
</p><p>
Cannabis-related businesses already operate in a strange gray area between federal laws that make marijuana illegal and states that have decriminalized its use, Sharma said. That forces some companies to rely on business practices that may appear shady, but are in fact workarounds. They may have no other choice, he said.
</p><p>Genius Fund's former CEO Racioppi characterizes the company's story as a "sordid tale of corporate mismanagement, subterfuge, and fraud involving an amalgam of shell companies that self-identify as part of the 'Genius Fund Group,'" in his whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.<br/></p><p>
Attorneys representing the defendants responded in the case that Racioppi was never terminated and characterized him as a disgruntled CEO who was unwilling to take direction from the new owner. They argue the case should be in arbitration, not in court.
</p><p>
"An employee's frustration that he was not given greater freedom to operate a company as he wished does not constitute breach of an employment contract," the response said, noting that Racioppi had never sent over a resignation notice.
</p><p>
Many former Genius Fund employees said they still don't know what to think of their time with the company. Rumors about the real intentions of Bosov's financial dealings were common, some former employees told dot.LA.
</p><p>
"A lot of us were not sure," a former employee said. "It looks funny, shady, but maybe nothing illegal is actually happening, and maybe, maybe it's just stupidity as well. We were all like, 'Maybe, maybe'."</p><p><em></em>__</p><p><em><em><em>This is the first in dot.LA's "Green Rush" series looking at the rise and fall of <em>cannabis-related startup</em> Genius Fund. Read <a href="https://dot.la/genius-fund-cannabis-startup-2646866270/" target="_self">part two</a>, <em><a href="https://dot.la/cannabis-products-genius-fund-2646866366.html" target="_self">part thre</a>e, <a href="https://dot.la/green-rush-genius-fund-2646866354.html" target="_blank">part four</a> and <a href="https://dot.la/dmitry-bosov-genius-fund-2646866356.html" target="_blank">part five</a> </em>and <a href="https://dot.la/st/newsletters" target="_self">sign up for dot.LA's newsletter</a> to be notified about new stories.</em></em></em></p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>@latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at </em><em>tami(at)dot.la</em><em>, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em></p><p><em>Lead art by Candice Navi</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Genius Fund's Plans to Build the Biggest Pot Farm in CA' - dot.LA ›
- Is the Green Rush Over? - dot.LA ›
- Green Rush: What Went Down in Adelanto - dot.LA ›
- The Death of Dmitry Bosov and His Dream of a Cannabis Empire - dot.LA ›
- LA Metal Icon Expands His Cannabis and Design Brand into Nevada, Arizona - dot.LA ›
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