Talks for SoftBank to fund crowdfunding startup Cadre ended when Jared Kushner declined to divest his ownership stake in the company.
Ryan Williams — who co-founded the platform with Jared and Joshua Kushner in 2014 — was in talks with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son in early 2018, Bloomberg reported. Williams had even flown to Tokyo at Masayoshi Son’s invitation, but the talks fell through.
Son, SoftBank’s CEO, was concerned that Jared Kushner may have had conflicts of interest or undue influence due to his appointment as senior advisor to President Donald Trump in 2017.
Cadre has had to contend with the Kushner’s political profile, executive departures and “inflated business claims,” according to Bloomberg.
According to one account of the pitch made to SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund in 2018, Cadre demonstrated software that it had not been using in practice. Cadre denied that, and did not comment further on the contents of its pitch.
The startup has not yet realized its goal of creating an online marketplace to make commercial real estate investments available to the masses. The online platform is currently only available to verified high net-worth individuals. In its latest funding round in 2017, it was valued at $800 million. [Bloomberg] — Georgia Kromrei