Lily Robotics Raided by Police, Might Substantiate Rumors of F…

Just lately we wrote about Lily Robotics closing the day earlier than the San Francisco District Legal professional filed a lawsuit towards them. Now there may be information that Lily Robotics has been raided for a doable legal investigation.

The unique lawsuit filed by the San Francisco DA alleges Lily Robotics dedicated fraud by selling a video that was truly shot with DJI and GoPro merchandise, however claimed to be shot utilizing Lily’s semi-autonomous drone. The video helped drum up $34 million in pre-sales, and generated big buzz within the drone trade (additionally main us so as to add Lily to our checklist of 70 Drone Firms to Watch final 12 months), so the declare is a giant one if actually folks had been misled into pre-purchasing one thing that didn’t exist.

Right here is the video (which has over 12 million views on YouTube):

 

Now the allegations made within the DA’s lawsuit seem to be they could be additional substantiated, with breaking information that Lily Robotics has been raided by the police to collect proof for a possible legal investigation.

The San Francisco police haven’t issued any particulars concerning the raid, and won’t even affirm that it befell. We will solely speculate that, if fraud was deliberately dedicated, there could also be additional proof saved on computer systems and elsewhere at Lily Robotics that the police wish to examine.

One level on which a legal investigation may hinge is whether or not there have been funds used inappropriately, or embezzled—it’s essential to notice that along with the $34 million of pre-sales, Lily had additionally raised over $14 million in startup funds, so if any of these funds are lacking that could possibly be one other piece of this puzzle.

The San Francisco DA’s case towards Lily was a consumer-protection civil swimsuit, which may go after Lily’s property however wouldn’t find yourself with anybody going through jail time. If a legal investigation is launched on account of proof discovered on this raid, Lily personnel could actually be going through costs that would put them behind bars.

Some Background

Lily Robotics, which had managed to gather $34 million in pre-sales, despatched out an e-mail on Wednesday, January 11 asserting that they had been closing store and issuing refunds because of a cashflow downside. Mainly, in keeping with their e-mail, they didn’t have the funds to really construct the drones that had been ordered by about 60,000 folks.

The very subsequent day, Thursday, January 12, the San Francisco DA filed his lawsuit. As we’ve written, the timing was extremely suspicious, and led us to imagine that Lily would possibly truly be closing as a result of they had been being sued.

A part of the story was that an e-mail had been found during which Lily’s CEO, Antoine Balaresque, wrote to the filmmaker who made the contentious promotional video:

“I am worried that a lens geek could study our images up close and detect the unique Gopro lens footprint. But I am just speculating here: I don’t know much about lenses but I think we should be extremely careful if we decide to lie publicly.”

In accordance with an unnamed supply for Forbes, the corporate who made the promotional video, CMI Productions, nonetheless has not been paid in full for its work.

Concerning refunds and whether or not they have truly began to be issued, the information is that customers from North America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere have stated they’ve obtained their reimbursements (that is in keeping with a survey of two,000 Lily prospects performed by Forbes on Fb)

We’ll hold you posted as this story continues to unfold. We will solely think about that, if the raid surfaced something, legal costs would be the subsequent step for San Francisco authorities.