Tax Startup CEO Defrauded Venture Capital Firms, SEC Says (1)

Oct. 21, 2025, 3:21 PM UTCUpdated: Oct. 21, 2025, 3:31 PM UTC

The founder and CEO of a now-defunct online tax software startup fraudulently raised over $13 million from venture capital investors, the SEC said.

From October 2020 through September 2023, Shiloh Luckey vastly overstated the revenue and number of subscribers for her startup, ComplYant App Inc., and falsely claimed to be a licensed certified public accountant, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint filed Monday in the US District Court for the Central District of California.

Among other false statements, Luckey claimed ComplYant’s monthly revenue from customers subscribing to its tax management software grew from around $2,500 in November 2020 ...

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