Fake, AI-generated start-up gets lucrative funding offer on LinkedIn!

A LinkedIn profile of an entirely fictional startup founder bagged a lucrative funding offer from a VC in just 24 hours!

A New York-based entrepreneur named Roshan Patel created a LinkedIn profile for a fake founder using artificial intelligence. The founder was a white male named Chad Smith, who claimed to be a Stanford University dropout and former employee of finance startup Stripe.

These details were enough to make investors fall hook, line, and sinker for ‘Chad Smith’.


Patel revealed that within 24 hours, he was inundated with funding offers, one of which was from a prestigious venture capital firm.

Taking to Twitter, Patel shared a screenshot of the fake profile as well as the message he received from the investor. The messenger claims his co-workers had “great things to say” about Smith. ““Hey Chad! I’m an analyst for XXXX ventures and saw you were starting your founder journey. A few ex-Stripe buddies of mine had great things to say about you, and I’d love to connect to learn more about what you’re building and share more about our fund,” reads the screenshot.
Patel is the CEO of Walnut, a health tech startup that helps users pay medical bills by breaking them into small monthly payments.

The post has gone viral on the microblogging platform with 11.6 million views and over 76K likes.

Several Twitter users responded to the tweet with tongue-in-cheek replies. One wrote, “I know a bunch of people who worked at Stripe, and NONE of them have anything good to say about Chad Smith.” One person mentioned the issue of racial bias in VC circles and how founders of color still have to deal with microaggressions in their startup journey. Others wanted to know if the message from VC was also AI-generated. “Find this hard to believe. You probably created the VC analyst profile as well,” joked another commenter.
While the post gave many users a laugh, the dangers of AI technology, especially if it is used by unscrupulous people, are far from a laughing matter. The rise of artificial intelligence has also led to an abundance of fake and duplicate identities and several attempts at spreading false news.