Former CEO of buzzy tech startup hit with prison time for fraud [Video]

The founder of a buzzy Silicon Valley startup was sentenced to prison over a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme — and prosecutors want it to be a lesson to other “fake it til you make it” entrepreneurs.

Manish Lachwani, the former CEO of app testing company HeadSpin, was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison, plus three years supervised release, for wire fraud and securities fraud, the Department of Justice announced.

Lachwani pleaded guilty to the charges in April 2023, admitting that he had knowingly given investors wrong information on the company’s financials and customer base.

Those false documents helped him dupe investors out of more than $100 million between 2017 and 2020, according to the DOJ.

Lachwani founded the software-as-a-service company — which gives clients software and tools to test out mobile apps — in 2015.

He served as its CEO until he was ousted in 2020 after the board launched an internal investigation into company financials, The Information reported. The …