Former Slync CEO sentenced to 20 years in prison for defrauding investors of $25 million

The founder and former CEO of supply chain management software company Slync was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Thursday.

Christopher Kirchner, 37, was arrested in February 2023 after being fired as CEO of Slync the previous summer. He was convicted in January of four counts of wire fraud and seven counts of money laundering for defrauding investors of at least $25 million.

Kirchner was also ordered to pay more than $65 million in restitution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

Christopher Weinbel, a federal public defender representing Kirchner, said by email Sunday that Kirchner intends to appeal.

Southlake-based Slync was once valued at $240 million. The company ran into trouble when Kirchner began using company funds for personal purposes, including the purchase of a $16 million private jet.

“Even though his company was in ruins, Chris Kirchner spent millions of investors’ money on himself,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton. “Apparently, he cared more about showing off his personal wealth than about paying his salaries.”

From April 2020 to March 2022, Kirchner initiated over 100 transfers from the company account at Silicon Valley Bank to another company account that only he had access to, and later transferred much of that money to his personal accounts, the press release said. After an employee reported Kirchner to the board and he was suspended, he revoked privileges from other employees to prevent them from accessing the computer system and attempted to delete 18 gigabytes of data, the press release said.

In October 2023, Slync filed for bankruptcy court. The company stated at the time that Kirchner’s lawsuit seeking to force it to pay its legal fees was one of the reasons for the liquidation.