Fordel StudiosWhy AI startups are selling the same equity at two different prices
What Happened
Some AI founders are using a novel valuation mechanism to manufacture unicorn status.
Our Take
This is secondary market fraud dressed up as "novel valuation mechanics." Selling identical shares to different investors at different prices to manufacture headline valuation—that's not legal in most jurisdictions.
Venture's stupid enough now that we're back to pre-2000 hustle theater. A unicorn press release doesn't mean anything if the cap table's fundamentally dishonest.
Watch these companies implode when the next fundraise needs reconciliation.
What To Do
If you're an employee at an AI startup doing this, start job hunting now — the cap table's toxic and it will blow up.
Builder's Brief
What Skeptics Say
Dual-price equity structures inflate paper valuations without market validation; when the funding environment tightens, artificially manufactured unicorn status collapses and poisons relationships with institutional LPs who were not in on the mechanism. This is not a novel trick — it ends the same way it always has.
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