Ankiti Bose, co-founder of Singaporean fashion tech company Zilingo, has filed a defamation lawsuit against prominent business angel and Seedfund co-founder Mahesh Murthy.
In 2018, Forbes named Ankit Bose to his 30 Under 30 list in Asia, and in 2019, he was named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 along with Bloomberg 50. According to Bloomberg, on March 31, 2022, she was suspended from her position as CEO after attempting to raise funding questions about her Zilingo accounting practices.
A source familiar with the matter said his Murthy article in his March 1 issue of Outlook Business magazine triggered the lawsuit.
In the article, Mr. Mercy accused Mr. Bose of illegally taking money from startups.
Ankiti Bose was reportedly suspended from Zilingo in April 2022 following multiple allegations of inappropriate behavior by an unnamed insider within the organization, according to Inc42.
According to HT Media, Mercy did not name Bose in the article, but did provide various explanatory references. She referred to the founder who illegally received money from the startup, referring to “a woman who ran a popular fashion portal and received her Sequoia money.”
“She asked her firm to pay her lawyer around £70m in fees and, according to her rumors, she returned much of that amount directly as her own cut,” Murthy said. claimed.
“The fact is that the evidence was not presented to me. The report was not presented to me. No one said anything directly for the record,” she said. Bose said the $100 million was calculated, among other things, on her stake in Zilingo and taking into account “losses such statements may affect future efforts.”
However, the complaint was submitted on April 20th and is currently in the pre-enrollment stage.