A proptech company founded during Austin’s tech craze is suing a Silicon Valley rival.
Austin-based True Footage, a residential appraiser company which also produces appraisal software, sued San Francisco startup Automax AI in the Northern District of California, claiming the young company cloned a copy of its software after gaining access through fake multiple listing service credentials, the Austin Business Journal reported. Automax AI CEO Humza Ahmed denies the allegations.
In addition to appraisal services, True Footage, launched in 2021, operates several software tools for property appraisers. Its flagship service is TrueTracts, which creates visual maps for comparing home prices, according to its website. Only active members of a multiple listing service can access this software, True Footage claimed in its lawsuit.
The company alleges that Ahmed accessed TrueTracts by falsely claiming membership in six Bay Area MLS groups. Afterward, True Footage claims, Ahmed explored and reverse-engineered the software by “vibe coding” a copy of it — that is, using artificial intelligence tools to draft code rather than write it manually.
True Footage also claims that Ahmed hired a credentialed appraiser to scrape MLS data for Automax AI, according to the publication
“This is a case about a college student so desperate to participate in Silicon Valley’s startup culture that he would defraud a market-leading company to get access to and copy its product and then attempt to pass that copy off to investors as his own work,” True Footage wrote in its lawsuit.
Founded in 2025, Automax AI offers software intended to generate complete appraisal reports automatically, according to its website. The company received support from Y Combinator, a prominent venture capital firm that incubates tech startups.
Automax called True Footage’s allegations false.
“They know that Automax can develop better technology faster, and in an effort to reassure newfound investors concerned about whether TrueFootage in fact possesses the ‘leading technology’ in this field, TrueFootage is trying to sue their way out of having to actually innovate or compete,” Ahmed wrote in a statement to the San Francisco Business Times.
– Isaiah Mitchell
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