The CEO of Joonko has stepped down amid allegations of fraud.
The Israeli-founded startup once had a presence in Birmingham and maintained an office there from around 2018 until around the time it opened a new office in New York City in late 2021. A spokesperson told the BBJ in 2022 it was "hard to say" when the Birmingham office officially closed, adding that the company no longer maintained a presence in Birmingham.
The company accepted funds from Alabama Futures Fund in 2019, which was a lead funding element to an overall $2.4 million round, according to a prior Joonko release. Alabama Futures Fund does not disclose the amount of funding it allocates to companies and did not comment on the current news.
According to a probe by Joonko’s board of directors and some of its investors, Ilit Raz, the Israeli founder and CEO of the startup, was found to be engaged in fraudulent conduct, according to The Times of Israel. The startup’s senior executives left the company and employees have also been summoned for a hearing ahead of their dismissal, according to Hebrew press reports.
Forbes reported in September that the company raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners, with support from Target Global and existing investors Kapor Capital and Vertex Ventures Israel.
The company closed a $10 million funding round in 2021. The artificial intelligence human resource tech startup that helped companies meet diversity recruiting quotas closed the round led by the Tel Aviv-based investment firm Vertex Ventures Israel. In 2021, a Joonko spokesperson said the company managed to compile a roster of clients that included Adidas, PayPal, American Express, Regions Bank and Intuit among other companies.
Joonko did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the BBJ.
The story was updated to reflect the funding round Alabama Futures Fund led was $2.4 million. The full amount did not come from AFF.
