A startup founder was arrested on charges of using VC money to pay for her house and a Caribbean wedding

Shiloh Luckey raised millions from top venture investors to build a tax-compliance startup and regularly offered personal finance advice to her thousands of TikTok followers.

Last week, she was arrested in Florida and charged with crimes that carry decades in prison for allegedly deceiving VCs and siphoning off funds to pay for her house, a Tesla, and her Caribbean wedding.

The case highlights a vulnerable truth in venture capital: Investors routinely write multimillion-dollar checks into young companies with little financial history and potentially unaudited numbers, putting enormous weight on what founders tell them.

That system depends on trust, which can break down when the story investors are being sold bears little resemblance to the underlying business of the startup.

Luckey did not respond to requests for comment.

She was arrested in Fort Lauderdale before she attempted to board a cruise ship for vacation, according to the Department of Justice.

Luckey was released on bond and is expected to appear in federal court in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.

Luckey founded ComplYant in 2019 to help small businesses navigate tax regulations.

In 2022, the company closed a $5.5 million seed round led by Craft Ventures, the San Francisco venture firm cofounded by the investor and White House advisor David Sacks. (A spokesperson for Craft did not respond to a request for comment.) Business Insider first reported on Luckey, who formerly went by Shiloh Johnson, in 2024 after her startup abruptly closed and she cut off contact with employees, some of whom discovered 401(k) contributions were missing.

In a 15-page indictment, prosecutors allege that Luckey misrepresented herself to investors as a CPA.

She also used money not in ComplYant’s accounts to buy a house in Los Angeles through what is known as a “check kiting scheme,” the indictment alleges.

Prosecutors say she wrote a $1.5 million check from an empty company account, deposited it into another company account at a different bank, and sent the money to complete the home purchase before the first bank discovered the check would not clear.

The indictment alleges that she later used money raised through a separate securities-fraud scheme to cover the resulting shortfall.

Luckey is charged with nine counts of securities fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, and two counts of money laundering.

Other tech founders who have gone to jail raised far more than the $13.3 million Luckey did.

One of the most famous examples is Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who raised over $700 million and is serving an 11-year sentence.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried raised about $1.8 billion and received a 25-year sentence for fraud involving the misuse of customer funds.

There is also Charlie Javice, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for defrauding JPMorgan Chase into buying her financial aid startup for $175 million.

Luckey has also been the subject of a separate civil suit brought by the SEC for securities law violations.

The SEC said she told investors her revenue was booming, even though she never brought in more than $620 a month and was adding only four subscribers a month.

It also said she siphoned off millions for trips to Aspen, Miami Beach, the Turks and Caicos, and Lisbon, as well as to pay for Super Bowl tickets.

The civil case was settled last month without Luckey admitting wrongdoing.

After ComplYant shut down, Luckey continued to post instructional videos offering personal finance advice on her now-deleted TikTok channel, which had nearly 24,000 subscribers.

Last year, she launched a startup called HabitLoop, which she described as a digital financial assistant that helps people manage their money. “I grew up with very poor financial habits,” Luckey said in a video introducing HabitLoop, saying it was inspired by a lifetime of spending beyond her means. “This is something I built on hard lessons,” she said.

There is no evidence that she was able to raise money for HabitLoop, and it never released a product.