In March 2022, as the sun set on a beachside stage in Maui, a rising star at SoftBank Vision Fund lavished praise on the leadership of a social media app the group had backed to become the next Facebook, and valued at more than $1bn.
The $150mn SoftBank had ploughed into IRL, the fund’s Serena Dayal said, was among the “fastest cheques” ever written by the Japanese conglomerate, according to two employees flown in for the company retreat. But even as they listened to the speech, several former staffers who spoke to the Financial Times said they were beginning to suspect the platform was a fraud.
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