this was to an earlier post. Wanted to put it as an original post. If the original celebs they signed were so good, why did they stop using them? Why didnt they invest in the later rounds ? Why didnt they give them equity like he offered KL ? This whole thing isnt about journalism, its about Due Diligence. Understanding the business, and the largest shareholder. Understanding the timing of Ballmer and Wong investments. If you pay a guy quarterly, any investment is going to be right after the last one, and right before the next one.. So you can come up with a story.. Let me break it down (thanks to chatgpt ) 2020/2021 CoFounder and largest shareholder, Joe Sanberg, (who admitted guilt and going to jail ) borrows 145m in total from a lender. The lender wants a co-signer to offer a PUT which allows them to require the Co-Signer to pay off any upaid part of the loan Sanberg pays a guy 12.3m to falsify brokerage and bank statements saying he has about 86m in liquid assets.. In reality, he has under 10k. More importantly for this timeline, he also put this guy (who is also going to jail), on the Aspiration Board. Combine this with Sanberg having another Board member vote as he is told, Sanberg has control of the Board of Directors and is also the Chairman. He effectively controls EVERYTHING. Which allows him to not only enable this huge fraud, but he can do any deal he wants, on a whim. No one can stop him and no one did until the feds came along. Here are the business details that really define this story when combined with the fraud March 2021. LOI for InterPrivate Merger July 2021. Aspiration - Interprivate Merger signed.. Interprivate had raised 258m dollars, which Aspiration could only get their hands on if the merger happened, making the new combined company a public company Aug ? 2021, Ballmer starts negotiating to invest in Aspiration. Sanberg meets with his Chief Investment Officer Sept 2021 Aspiration pre-pays 3.75m towards 1st season fee Sept 13, 2021 Aspiration $300m Sponsor deal with clippers signed. Payment is for 7.5m for the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons. Jumping to 15m for 23/24 season with 250k escalators annually The Clippers also signed an agreement to pay Aspiration more than 50 million for carbon offsetting toward the goal of becoming carbon neutral, according to multiple sources briefed on the deal. @Theathletic(I dont know the terms) Sept 14 2021 Ballmer invests 20m upfront, and 30m in escrow.. Aspiration has the right to withdraw from the escrow as long as they convey shares at the set valuation. Oct 15, Oct 28, Aspiration withdraws 40pct of cash Beginning of November, Ballmer tells reporter he found email saying thats when he introduced KL to Aspiration at the request of Aspiration Nov 2, Nov 12, Nov 16 2021, Aspiration withdraws the remaining balance of Ballmer's escrow Nov 22, 2021. KL2 Aspire is incorporated in Cali Dec 15, 2021 Oaktree invests 250m. The merger agreement extension was signed. With a min cash condition of 450m (How anyone thought this would be hit, i have no idea..Any SPAC experts want to give feedback ?) Feb 14, 2022 Form -4 filed with the SEC by InterPrivate.. They are a public company on the NYSE. It has most of the details that are in this timeline up to this point. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the fraud had started, and these unaudited Aspiration numbers are filled with questionable numbers. BUT, they do show numbers that would indicate to anyone that looked that if the merger doesnt happen, the company is dead Mar 18, 2022 Internal accounts raise red flags of suspicious actiity and possible fraud according to a memo sent to the chief legal officer. The accountants then resigned. An outside law firm reviewed and found nothing. But, then their auditors, KPMG resign. April 4, 2022 The KL2 contract for 28m is signed. Apparently, the first 1.75m payment is made then April 6, 2022 Company announces layoffs of 180 May, 2022 According to @TheAthletic I am personally contributing stock to Kawhi to make this partnership possible,” Sanberg wrote members of his leadership team in a May 2022 email obtained by The Athletic. “Aspiration’s CEO judged the deal to be not worth doing. For avoidance of doubt, any and all benefit to Aspiration from the Kawhi deal is being subsidized by my contributing my equity to make this happen. As part of the agreement, Sanberg also pressured the company to pay for fees incurred by Frankel” July, 2022, the second payment to KL2 appears to be made. July, 2022 Aspiration in a deal Sanberg negotiated pays $5m to InterPrivate to keep the merger alive Aug 22 - Downloads for their consumer banking app had declined from 300k a year ago to 30k in Aug22 Sept, 2022 Aspiration pays another 5 to keep the merger deal alive into 2023.. This allows him to tell all investors after this that all is well. The merger will happen. Oct 2022. when the company was late with a payment that fall, Leonard’s agent, Mitch Frankel, reached out to company executives. Mid Oct 2022, All hands zoom, 400 workers, w.out CEO Cherny. Joe Sanberg, the largest shareholder, but didnt have a specific job, announces new CEO Albrecht. Forbes reports a rift between Sanberg and Cherny who had been discussing his resignation for months. Dec 2022 According to Forbes, they laid off roughly 100. Albrecht says they are focusing on their B2B ALL CONSUMER MARKETING WOULD BE PAUSED. Presumably, KL2 was hired to do consumer marketing. All of which, KL or otherwise,had obviously failed as the number of cards dropped to 10k, leading to D2C being ended and that business being given away to former employee in 2024 https://www.forbesafrica.com/finance/2023/03/13/a-floundering-fintechs-risky-reboot/ Dec 6, 2022 Check for 1.999m from Dennis Wong received Dec 15, 2022 KL2 is paid their late payment Mar 2023 Steve Ballmer invests another 10m. Ballmer’s investment was part of a fundraising round made up almost entirely of previous Aspiration investors, with Wong being the lone exception. The company hoped to raise 75 million in fresh money but came up nearly 9 million short. A vast majority of the shares were bought up by Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg and Ibrahim AlHusseini, another Aspiration board member. (TheAthletic) March 24, 2023 company announces further layoffs of 180, signed by CEO Albrecht Aug 29, 2023. This is what kills the company and seals Sanberg's fate In connection with the termination of the Second A&R Merger Agreement, as of August 29, 2023, the Company is entitled to a termination fee from Aspiration in an amount equal to 20,000,000 (“Termination Fee”), of which 7,0000,000 is to be paid in cash and 13,000,000 issued in equity interest. Management has not determined that it is probable that the Termination Fee will be substantially collected." See my next post for my general thoughts(Mark Cuban)