NZ-raised tech whizz hit with crypto fraud lawsuit
| Published date | 09 July 2022 |
| Publication title | Weekend Herald |
The investor, who claims to have lost more than NZ$1 million worth of cryptocurrency at current values, alleges the founders used a purported Cook Islands shell company to make it harder for investors to try to recoup their losses.
He has filed the lawsuit in a California court to try to recover the cryptocurrency he sunk into the startup, the documents say.
The Weekend Herald can reveal the other two co-founders named in the suit have now left Hypernet, along with a senior manager.
Ravlich did not respond to requests for comment and the other co-founders could not be reached.
Ravlich, whose father is a New Zealander with family still living in Auckland, enjoyed a meteoric rise from Kerikeri High School where he was head boy and dux in 2007.
The following year he went to the University of Auckland to study Chemical Engineering and Materials Science on a scholarship.
The young tech whizz later jetted off to California’s renowned Stanford University, where he completed a masters.
While studying for a doctorate, he founded and became chief executive of a startup called Hypernet Labs in 2017 with fellow Stanford graduates Todd Chapman and Daniel Maren.
In a glowing alumni profile on the University of Auckland’s website, Ravlich said he founded Hypernet with the aim of making the startup “the connective tissue between all computing resources around the globe”.
An early investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the startup was billed as offering various cloud computing services where users would pay via Hypernet’s own cryptocurrency token.
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, that do not rely on a central authority like a government or bank. Their values soared during the pandemic but have recently been in free-fall.
Hypernet’s first product was an app called Galileo, aimed at researchers who undertake simulations.
The early investor claimed when Hypernet charged people for Galileo it accepted payment via credit card, not its own crypto token, which the investor believes appears never to have been used as intended.
In 2020, Ravlich was named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” in the science category.
His profile on the Forbes website said Galileo had been used by government agencies and a space propulsion company.
It claimed...
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