Politixia
The founder and former CEO of the now-defunct AI recruiting startup Joonko Diversity pleaded guilty to securities fraud.
The guilty plea comes about two years after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint against Ilit Raz. She now faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, which has yet to be determined.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Raz misrepresented important company information to secure approximately $27 million from investors.
That total included roughly $10 million raised in a 2021 Series A funding round and another $17 million in a Series B round in 2022.
Founded in 2016, Joonko billed itself as an AI-powered recruiting platform designed to help companies find diverse job applicants and meet hiring goals related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
According to a Justice Department press release, Raz knowingly lied about the number and identities of Joonko’s customers and inflated its revenue figures. This false information was then provided to investors.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. said in the release that Raz’s guilty plea shows “defrauding investors and misrepresenting essential facts about a company will not be tolerated.”
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