Chris Kirchner, CEO of startup Slync, sentenced to 20 years in prison

Chris Kirchner, the former CEO of technology startup Slync – which was once valued at more than $240 million after raising millions from investors including Goldman Sachs only to spend the money on a private jet and luxury cars – was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The sentence is one of the harshest in recent years for a tech founder accused of fraud – Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to 11 years last year – and caps a dramatic rise and fall for the young founder, who raised more than $80 million for Slync with the goal of becoming a major software provider for the logistics industry. Kirchner, who was represented by a court-appointed defense attorney, received the maximum sentence and was ordered to pay $65 million in damages, according to a sentencing document.

Kirchner was the subject of a July 2022 Forbes Investigations documented how he had overstated sales figures to the board, and he fired executives who tried to raise the alarm about his cheating. He also spent heavily on personal expenses, buying a $16 million private jet and a fleet of luxury cars. When the company’s financing dried up, Kirchner continued to fly around the world to glamorous sporting events while his employees went unpaid.

Months later, Kirchner was arrested by FBI agents at his Dallas-area mansion and charged by both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission with multiple fraud counts. The charges included allegations that he fraudulently offered and sold more than $67 million in securities, of which he allegedly misappropriated more than $28 million for his personal benefit. Kirchner was found guilty by jury in January.

Slync, whose board Kirchner had Forbes The company reportedly shut down permanently last year despite receiving an additional $24 million investment from Goldman Sachs.

This article first appeared on forbes.com.

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