%1

IronNet, a once-promising cybersecurity startup founded by a former NSA director and funded by cyber and defense investors, has shuttered and laid off its remaining staff following its collapse, TechCrunch.com reported. In a regulatory filing published Friday, IronNet’s president and chief financial officer Cameron Pforr said the company had ceased all business activities as it prepares for chapter 7 bankruptcy, effectively liquidating the company’s remaining assets to pay its remaining debts. The Virginia-based IronNet was founded in 2014 by retired four-star general Keith Alexander, soon after he departed as the former director of the National Security Agency during the biggest leak (at the time) of government secrets by former contractor Edward Snowden. IronNet provided corporations and government agencies with technologies aimed at helping to defend against cyber threats, and using large datasets and analytics to automate threat intelligence. Its other products were designed to protect critical infrastructure.

Small-time crypto traders who invested with Celsius Network have been going toe-to-toe with legal and financial heavyweights — and notching some unlikely victories — as the company works to wrap up its bankruptcy case, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Much like the online users who banded together to defeat hedge funds’ short bets on AMC Entertainment, retail investors with crypto trapped on the Celsius platform are punching above their weight in the bankruptcy. Among the unlikely combatants: a superyacht stewardess in California, a fundraiser for a progressive nonprofit in Maryland, a college student in Florida, and a crypto influencer in New York who creates digital designs for customized mugs and T-shirts. While most bankruptcies unfold away from public view, hundreds of customers of Celsius have dissected every development online, in real-time and granular detail. Largely acting without lawyers, the crypto owners have caught a mistake by the company’s bankruptcy advisers, publicized confidential company information obtained from employees and faced down big institutional investors also scavenging for its limited assets.

Lenders to Indian education-technology company Byju’s have alleged that it covertly transferred $533 million to a Florida-based hedge fund, adding another dimension to their legal feud with one of India’s most highly valued startups, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. A lender lawsuit filed in a Miami court last week alleges Byju’s sent $533 million that should have been in its U.S. affiliate’s bank accounts to Camshaft Capital, described as a Miami-area hedge fund, and concealed the whereabouts of that money from the company’s lenders. The case, filed by the lenders’ agent, Glas Trust Company, seeks to unwind the alleged transfer to Camshaft Capital, to recover any associated fees and to “otherwise ascertain what happened” to $533 million that purportedly served as collateral for a $1.2 billion loan. Byju’s is battling its lenders across several courts after they called defaults against the company earlier this year and sought to take control of its U.S. affiliate, Byju’s Alpha, citing its alleged failure to make required financial disclosures. Byju’s has disputed that it breached its obligations and accused the lenders of manufacturing defaults to try to extort the company for payments.

The co-founders of Israeli artificial intelligence startup Vesttoo ran a forgery scheme that included a fake bank employee persona named “Alex Garcia” to obtain billions of dollars in bogus letters of credit for insurance deals, the now-bankrupt company said, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Vesttoo’s investigation into the fraud allegations that drove it to bankruptcy last month alleged that co-founders Yaniv Bertele and Alon Lifshitz and other senior executives had engaged in a scheme to generate fraudulent letters of credit from China Construction Bank and other financial institutions. The company also said it is considering litigation against China Construction Bank and U.K.-based Standard Chartered based on evidence turned up in the internal investigation that employees at both banks may have been involved in the fraudulent scheme, according to Thursday’s report, filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. It marks Vesttoo’s initial findings into what went wrong at the company. Bertele said in a statement Thursday that he rejects the report’s allegations and that Vesttoo’s investigation “was flawed from the outset and targeted the company’s founders as its objective.” His statement said the investigation was part of a “takeover within the company amidst a dispute between shareholders.” Lifshitz also said the report’s accusations are unfounded and that the investigation was biased and served the interests of other shareholders. Both Bertele and Lifshitz are contesting their dismissals from the company under Israeli law, according to the report.

A cybersecurity company founded by former Pentagon brass said in a regulatory filing that it would furlough most of its workers and explore options including bankruptcy reorganization or liquidation, the Wall Street Journal reported. IronNet, co-founded in 2014 by former National Security Agency director and retired Army Gen. Keith Alexander and other former intelligence and defense officials, announced the layoffs and the possibility of bankruptcy in an 8-K filing Tuesday to the Securities and Exchange Commission, also saying it would “substantially curtail” its operations. IronNet, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, said the furlough would last until its financial position improved enough for it to rehire a “portion” of affected employees and restart its operations. It has retained several employees to guard against service interruptions, it said. “In the absence of additional sources of liquidity, the Company’s existing cash and cash equivalents and anticipated cash flows from operations are not sufficient to meet the Company’s operating and liquidity needs,” IronNet said in its filing. The company posted losses in its last two fiscal years, $111 million for the year ended in January, and $242.6 million the previous year.

Starry Group Holdings Inc., the Boston-based wireless broadband provider, is emerging from bankruptcy with a new leader who has a more sober view on growth and a rediscovered bias toward reaching profitability, Bloomberg News reported. The company filed for chapter 11 protection in February and has restructured as a closely held venture, according to a statement Thursday. The board will include co-founders Alex Moulle-Berteaux and Chet Kanojia. Ditching earlier hyper-growth aspirations that ran aground when the capital markets dried up, Starry Chief Executive Officer Moulle-Berteaux said he has a fully funded moderate-growth business plan that will get the company to break-even in two years or less. Moulle-Berteaux, a Starry co-founder, was previously the company’s chief operating officer. Wireless broadband connections start at $50 a month at Starry, which is cheaper than cable and landline internet services. The company sells service in Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Denver and Washington. Currently it has fewer than 100,000 broadband subscribers, Moulle-Berteaux said. Starry’s second act comes at a highly competitive time in the broadband industry. All three of the major U.S. mobile service providers have been using new super fast 5G networks to beam signals into homes to provide internet access. The lower cost wireless broadband offerings, where Starry will be competing, have been popular with customers looking for cheaper alternatives to landline internet offerings and have undercut subscriber growth at the cable companies including Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc.