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The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three men on Monday in a scheme that resulted in a $100 million valuation for a New Jersey deli and a separate shell company, the agency said yesterday. "We allege that the defendants’ brazen schemes resulted in the artificial inflation of the stock price of two publicly traded companies with little to no annual revenues,” said Scott Thompson of the agency's enforcement office in Philadelphia.

Several high-flying startups are being brought down to earth, as a recent carnage in global equity markets and lackluster demand for new listings force companies to raise funds at a substantial discount to their sky-high valuations, Reuters reported. Easy money from venture capital dealmaking is fast evaporating in an inflation-induced high interest-rate environment as many private investors take a hard look at funding startups, many of which could be years away from turning a profit. Already high-profile companies such as payments firm Stripe, Swedish buy-now-pay-later firm Klarna and delivery startup Instacart have seen their valuations get knocked down by a peg or two this year, in what venture capital firms call down rounds. In the United States alone, 81 U.S. companies had to take a hair cut to their valuation, data from PitchBook showed. Companies that are looking for seed money, or early-stage funding, are also seeing their valuations questioned. After a stellar run marked by record multi-billion dollar listings, the U.S. IPO market has grounded to a halt, with only eight companies managing a successful floatation this year — a 13-year low, according to reports from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).