Former Vesttoo CEO Yaniv Bertele — LinkedIn
Two of the founders of Vesttoo, an Israeli insurtech startup, Yaniv Bertele and Alon Lifshitz were ordered by a Tel Aviv court to hand over about $30 million of the funds that the company seeks to recoup from the duo. The firm had filed court motions in an attempt to get back more than $200 million from Bertele and Lifshitz it says the two earned illegitimately, as well as another $65 million from former Vesttoo execs Udi Ginati and Josh Rurka.
The news comes just a few weeks after Vesttoo co-founders CEO Yaniv Bertele and Chief Financial Officer Alon Lifshitz were both fired by the company’s board of directors in the wake of the fraud scandal.
Ami Barlev, CEO of Vesttoo, said, “The court’s unilateral approval of the temporary reliefs and foreclosures that were requested confirms the results of the company’s investigation against Mr. Bertele, Mr. Lifshitz, Mr. Ginati, Mr. Rurke, and Mr. Ezer. The request for temporary reliefs was supported by many pieces of evidence. “
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He went on to say that the fact that the district court imposed these foreclosures on a significant scale is also significant. It shows that the judge took the company’s findings very seriously and that he believes that the company is entitled to the relief it is seeking.
Bertele’s lawyers said, “The request in question, as well as the decision given in it, were not presented to Bertele. As has often been the case, the details were leaked to the media beforehand.”
They went on to charge that the request for foreclosures, “lacks any factual and legal basis and was unlawfully submitted within the framework of insolvency proceedings in a clear and transparent attempt to avoid paying a toll.”
In July it was reported that Vesttoo investors allegedly provided fake letters of credit (LOCs) to insurers for reinsurance transactions on the Vesttoo platform are believed to total a sum of around $4 billion. Most of these letters reportedly came from what was described as a leading Chinese bank, which appears to have been unaware of the situation.
Vesttoo recently saw its value plummet and it closed offices and let go, overall, about 75% of its staff. The company is now reportedly seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Vesttoo first hit the coveted unicorn status in October of 2022 when the firm raised $80 Million in a Series C financing round that left it with a $1.1 billion valuation. And it was just this past May that the firm hit a valuation of as much as $2 billion.
Founded in 2018 by CEO Yaniv Bertele, CPO Alon Lifshitz, and CTO Ben Zickel,, Vesttoo specializes in data-driven risk management solutions for the P&C and longevity markets, using “cutting-edge technologies to transfer General Insurance, Lapse, and Longevity risk to the capital markets.” Vesttoo declares that it provides insurers and pension funds with low-cost, strategic risk transfer to the capital markets, while investors benefit from correlated, high-yield investments with remote loss possibilities.
