- Prosecutors say Joanna Smith-Griffin inflated revenues of her startup, AllHere Education.
- Smith-Griffin is accused of lying about contracts with schools to get $10 million in investment.
- AllHere, which spun out Harvard’s Innovation Lab, was supposed help reduce absenteeism.
Federal prosecutors have charged the founder of an education technology startup spun out of Harvard who was recognized on a Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2021 with fraud.
Joanna Smith-Griffin was said by federal prosecutors in New York to have lied for years about her startup AllHere Education’s revenues and contracts with school districts. The company received $10 million under false pretenses, the indictment says.
AllHere, which came out of the Harvard Innovation Lab, created an AI chatbot that was supposed to help reduce student absenteeism. It furloughed its staff earlier this year and had a major contract with the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to the education-news website The 74. The company is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.
Smith-Griffin was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for education in 2021. She is the latest in a line of young entrepreneurs spotlighted by the publication — including Sam Bankman-Fried, Charlie Javice, and Martin Shkreli — to face criminal charges.
More recently, Inc. Magazine spotlighted her on its 2024 list of female founders “for leveraging AI to help families communicate and get involved in their children’s educational journey.”
“The law does not turn a blind eye to those who allegedly distort financial realities for personal gain,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
Prosecutors say Smith-Griffin deceived investors for years. In spring 2021, while raising money, she claimed that AllHere had $3.7 million in revenue the year before and about $2.5 million on hand. According to charging documents, her company had made only $11,000 the year before and had about $494,000 on hand. Its claims that the New York City Department of Education and the Atlanta Public Schools were among its customers were also false, the government claims.
AllHere’s investors included funds managed by Rethink Capital Partners and Spero Ventures, according to a document filed in bankruptcy court.
Smith-Griffin was arrested the morning of November 19 in North Carolina, prosecutors said.
Harvard said Smith-Griffin received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard Extension School in 2016. According to an online biography, she was previously a teacher and worked for a charter school.
Representatives for Forbes, and Inc. didn’t immediately respond to a comment request on Tuesday. A message left at a number listed for Smith-Griffin wasn’t returned.
