Sources: 11x, an AI-powered sales automation startup backed by a16z and Benchmark, has been using fake customer endorsements and massaging its financial numbers
Last year, AI-powered sales automation startup 11x appeared to be on an explosive growth trajectory.
Blockbuster @TechCrunch investigation of @a16z-backed AI sales startup 11x: - 11x claimed customers it didn't have, like ZoomInfo & Airtable. - 11x counted trial users as full-year ones, making its ARR look 4x bigger. - 11x's products “barely work,” former eng says. [image]
An AI company with a similar “revenue” trajectory likes to include early equity raised as part of their ARR calculation. Raised ~$20M so far & is quite literally everywhere. I'm pretty sure none of its investors are aware of this. Good litmus on who is doing the most basic DD.
@DominicMadori @MTemkin For the record, 11x says it used “contracted ARR” as a metric & that investors were aware of it. But counting a customer who paid for 3 months of your product as if they had paid for 12 months is pretty, erm, atypical https://techcrunch.com/...