Ask HN: Not sure if founder is (lightly) defrauding investors?

Our small b2b startup is seeking seed money from investors at the moment. We also have a potentially big fish client deal in the works, and our founder has been telling investors about this possibility order to drum up excitement and in turn, funds.

We expect the next response from big fish to be a yes/no as to whether we are moving forward.

The founder said they didn't want to follow up with the big fish to speed up their response because if it were a "no," they could no longer tell investors about the possibility of a big fish deal. They said they wanted to close out this round quickly instead.

This feels a little off to me, and I worry it borders on fraud. Is intentionally blinding yourself to information like this illegal in some way? Or is this just par the course and not an issue?

Just wanted to make sure I'm not in an legally precarious situation here.