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I don't understand how they lost their startup though? Doesn't the accelerator only take a small percent?

I guess the argument is that a $250k warrant sitting in bankruptcy court is a potential liability that would turn off other investors. It's not something I've personally seen, but it doesn't really seem insurmountable for a hot startup. Losing a cofounder is a much more common and potentially painful problem.

The CEO's post on LinkedIn made it seem like they found it tough to get funding in general.

"Startups also granted Newchip the right to buy $250,000 worth of shares in the company at a later date, but at their current valuation"

So the company was essentially signed away even before the bankruptcy.

Yup. The bankruptcy just transferred the right to exploit it from the mildly incompetent to expertly ruthless.

I prefer the term scam artist over "expertly ruthless"

I don't think the final buyers are scam artists. They're mercenary, but not deceiving anyone.

The scam artists are definitely the people preying on entrepreneurs' dreams to sell a worthless accelerator membership.

Yeah this is a pretty bad and far far far from founder friendly.

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