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AI founder allegedly swindled investors out of $60M, bought SF homes

GameOn founder Alexander Beckman and wife Victoria Lau Beckman bought two homes in Presidio Heights, property records show

AI Founder Accused of Using Stolen Funds to Buy Two SF Homes
3877-3879 Jackson Street and 1822 Lyon Street in San Francisco with Alexander Beckman of GameOn (Google Maps, LinkedIn)

An AI startup founder and his wife bilked investors out of $60 million using funds for personal expenses including two homes in Presidio Heights, one of San Francisco’s premier neighborhoods, according to a federal indictment and property records. 

Alexander Beckman, the founder and former CEO of AI company GameOn, and wife Valerie Lau Beckman ran a “brazen and wide-ranging,” scheme over a six-year period, per the indictment unsealed in San Francisco on Thursday.

The couple worked in tandem to steal from GameOn investors, using the funds for private school for Beckman’s children, their October 2023 wedding, a Tesla Model X with falcon-wing doors, jewelry and credit card bills, according to the indictment.  

Prosecutors also accuse the couple of using investor funds twice to buy properties in San Francisco, as well as pay off over $100,000 in personal property tax bills. They first took $360,000 from the company, which creates chatbots for major league sports teams and retailers, to put it toward a home purchase in 2020, and two years later transferred another $4.2 million into their personal accounts to buy a second home “knowing that the money was proceeds of the scheme to defraud GameOn investors,” according to the indictment. 

The indictments redact the addresses of the properties in question, but they are available in public records. The first property is 1822 Lyon Street, a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath condominium in a two-unit Victorian in Presidio Heights near Laurel Village, which Lau Beckman purchased for $1.5 million in late 2020. She took out a $1.13-million loan on that property from Bank of San Francisco, and the couple took out another $149,000 loan on the property from Homebridge last November, according to loan documents.

In April 2022, Beckman bought 3877-3879 Jackson Street in Presidio Heights near ultra-exclusive Presidio Terrace for $4.25 million, according to property records. The $2.55 million loan on that property was granted by First Republic Bank in July 2022, according to loan documents. That loan was assumed by J.P. Morgan when it bought First Republic’s assets after the San Francisco-based bank failed in the spring 2023.

The Jackson Street property is a two-unit 1910-built home, with two full-floor flats housing four bedrooms and one and a half baths on each floor in about 5,100 total square feet, plus a “non-conforming” one-bedroom apartment, according to the listing notes from the time of the sale. The ground floor has about 1,500 square feet of unfinished storage space, but no garage, and a large south-facing yard. 

The property at “3877-3879 Jackson can be used as a single-family home, upper-level owner unit with income producing tenants, and a multigenerational compound,” according to the listing.

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After they bought the second home in an all-cash sale, they tried to get a loan to pay back what they had taken, the indictment says. 

“We are going to need to move 4.25 from our GameOn account into our private account and then start the work on the most aggressive [interest-only] loan we can have from you!!” Beckman allegedly wrote the loan officer. 

When the officer followed up, asking for more information, the indictment alleges the couple supplied a fictional board of directors’ meeting minutes, falsely signed by the board secretary, showing that they had been approved for a company loan of up to $5 million. 

The ruse worked and, after getting the $2.55 million loan, they transferred almost all of it to GameOn. 

Last summer, Beckman resigned from the AI company, renamed On Platform, after higher-ups allegedly discovered only 37 cents in a bank account that they thought held $11 million, according to VentureBeat. Lau Beckman is a lawyer at an undisclosed venture fund, according to the indictment.

Following his departure, Beckman told VentureBeat, “I understand that there are serious allegations being made, and I take them very seriously. Accordingly, I look forward to correcting the record and providing the full story at the appropriate time.”

The couple reportedly pleaded not guilty on Thursday. If the pair is convicted, the indictment calls for the properties, and the Tesla, to be among the items forfeited.

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