Ubiome Insurance Fraud
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Sam Parr shares an update about the Ubiome fraud case and its founders who escaped justice.
"Ubiome started around 2014 as a Kickstarter/Indiegogo project. The concept was you'd pay $80, send them your poop, and they'd analyze your gut. They raised from top investors - Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and in September 2018 raised $100 million at a $600 million valuation.
Turns out it was all a scam. Their tests were nonsense - they'd send back fake results. But they would bill insurance companies $3,000 per test. Through this insurance fraud, they made roughly $35 million. The two founders, who got married during this time, also sold $12 million worth of their shares.
Eventually, the FBI raided their office when it was discovered the whole company was fraudulent. But here's the update - the founders fled to Germany and they're international fugitives now. They've completely gotten away with it. They're just living happily married in Germany, and according to their Wikipedia page, they have 'no intention of coming back to America.'
They raised $100 million, stole $35 million from insurance companies - we're talking close to $150 million total - and they're just chilling in Germany. They've gotten away with it completely."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.