Ivan Ravlich attended the University of Auckland before his stint at Stanford.
Ivan Ravlich went from head boy of Kerikeri High School to a nationally acclaimed tech entrepreneur in the US in a little over a decade. But the New Zealand-raised scientist, in recent years named on the Forbes magazine 30 under 30 list, now faces accusations he and his co-founders defrauded investors. George Block reports.
A Northland high school graduate is at the centre of a lawsuit in California alleging he and his co-founders defrauded millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency from investors in his embattled start-up.
Court documents obtained by the Herald show an investor alleges Ivan Ravlich and two other co-founders of Hypernet Labs lied to investors while failing to develop any viable product or service.
The investor, who claims to have lost more than NZ$1 million worth of cryptocurrency at current values, alleges the founders used a purported Cook Islands shell company to make it harder for investors to try to recoup their losses.
He has filed the lawsuit in a California court to try and recover the cryptocurrency he sunk into the start-up, the documents say.
The Herald can reveal the other two co-founders named in the suit have now left Hypernet, along with a senior manager.
Ravlich did not respond to requests for comment and the other co-founders could not be reached.
Ravlich, whose father is a New Zealander with family still living in Auckland, enjoyed a meteoric rise from Kerikeri High…
