The founder of a failed artificial intelligence company was indicted by federal prosecutors this week on charges that he lied to investors about his firm’s finances and pressured a venture capitalist to invest $500,000 based on bogus revenue numbers.
Michael Brackett, 36, was the founder and CEO of Centricity, an AI-driven software platform marketed to grocery stores and other retailers that sought to predict customer demand for particular products in certain communities. The New York-based company was founded in 2019 and collapsed around June 2021, prosecutors said.
Brackett, a Maine native, began reaching out to short-term lenders in the spring of 2021 in search of funding. In some of those emails, Brackett attached a January 2021 bank statement for Centricity, which had a balance of $94,420.06—but he doctored the document by adding a digit at the front, inflating its balance to $594,420.06, according to authorities.