Another Forbes 30 Under 30 CEO Is Indicted for Fraud

A once-vaunted member of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 club was indicted this week on charges that she defrauded investors out of nearly $10 million while leading a chatbot company that worked with some of the nation’s largest school districts.

Joanna Smith-Griffin was the CEO of AllHere Education, which convinced districts like the Los Angeles Unified School District to spend as much as $6 million on an animated talking sun named “Ed” that was supposed to reduce student absenteeism and increase engagement. The company collapsed earlier this year and filed for bankruptcy as questions swirled about its finances and The 74 Million reported on whistleblower concerns that its LAUSD chatbot was leaking student data.

Smith-Griffin joins a growing list of Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees who have gone on to be charged with massive corporate fraud schemes.

A grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court alleges that the company’s problems began as early as 2021 when Smith-Griffin was courting investors for a Series A funding round. According to federal prosecutors, Smith-Griffin told potential investors that AllHere had generated $3.7 million in revenue during 2020 and had secured contracts with the New York City Department of Education and Atlanta Public Schools. In fact, the company had brought in only $11,000 during 2020 and didn’t have contracts with those districts, according to the indictment.

AllHere raised approximately $8 million in funding and Smith-Griffin allegedly used approximately $150,000 of the money she received from selling her own shares in the company to investors to make a down payment on a house in North Carolina. During the course of the years-long scheme, Smith-Griffin also allegedly transferred at least $600,000 in company funds to her personal accounts.

Over the next several years, Smith-Griffin continued to send updates to investors that misrepresented the company’s finances, according to the indictment. In March 2023, she allegedly told investors that the company needed an emergency loan to pay its employees because AllHere’s cash, amounting to more than $10 million, had been deposited with Silicon Valley Bank, which had just collapsed. In fact, the company only had $1.7 million deposited with the failed bank, and the payroll numbers Smith-Griffin gave to investors were inflated, according to the indictment.

When AllHere began raising money in a Series B funding round, Smith-Griffin allegedly inflated the company’s revenue numbers again, claiming that it had generated nearly $22 million in revenue from 2021 through 2022 when in fact the actual revenue was less than $500,000, according to the indictment.

Based on those misrepresentations, an investor proposed buying a $35 million minority stake in AllHere that valued the company at approximately $135 million, according to the indictment. But as the investor dug into AllHere’s finances, it began to see problems and pulled out of the deal.

The alleged scheme began to fall apart in May 2024 when one of AllHere’s investors contacted the company’s accountant—instead of getting updates directly from Smith-Griffin, as investors had previously done—and received an accurate financial statement that showed the company was pulling in far less revenue than its CEO had been claiming.

To reconcile the differences, the investor began talking with an outside financial consultant who worked with AllHere. During a video call with that consultant, the investor received an email with fraudulent information about non-existent contracts that purported to be from the consultant, according to the indictment. When the investor asked about the email, the consultant denied sending it. Prosecutors allege that Smith-Griffin created a fake email address in the consultant’s name in order to send the message.

After AllHere’s investors began comparing notes, the company’s board removed Smith-Griffin as CEO. In June 2024, AllHere furloughed most of its employees and the next month it filed for bankruptcy.

Smith-Griffin has been charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.