Viktoria Kazhan, Chief Investment Officer of Zorachka Inc.
Ms. Kazhan presenting Zorachka Inc.
Ms. Kazhan presented Zorachka Inc. at Sir Anthony Ritossa's recent Family Office Invesment Summit. Pitching from the stage cost them at least 30,000EUR.
Zorachka Inc. is a developer of a home camera with full Privacy and embedded storage. Viktoria Kazhan is its Chief Investment Officer, responsible for fundraising and due diligence.
Not all startups attending "the Summit" are scams. Take Zorachka for example. A Cyprus/Belarus startup, developing an AI-enabled webcam and not promising to end the world hunger or global warning in the meantime. Having obtained modest financing, they hired Viktoriya Kazhan, (Виктория Кажан) a "Finance Business Partner" as Chief Investment Officer, responsible for Fundraising and, ironically, for Due Diligence.
Having not performed any meaningful due diligence on Ritossa (it's hard to imagine how she could have missed all the warning signs), Viktoria shelled out tens of thousands of company's euros to Ritossa for a 5-minute pitch in front of "sheikhs and whales" (Update: previous version of this article incorrectly indicated that Ms. Kazhan participated in a panel discussion). It is a pity some of that money was not spent on a background check before wiring the organizers money much needed elsewhere. Summit participation packages that include the 5-minute pitch cost €30,000, €40,000, or €65,000. Ritossa is known to give small discounts to entice prospective participants. For example, this participant paid €28,000 instead of €30,000.
Obviously, there was no investment into Zorachka as a result of the participation in the "investment summt". A year later, Viktoria left the company, the founder is busy opening up another startup, and close to half of the staff are looking for work on LinkedIn (#OPENTOWORK):
Zorachka's LinkedIn profile as of Oct. 2022
It is a pity they did not spend a fraction of that money on background check of the conference organizers before wiring them 30K much needed elsewhere. It takes some skill to uncover who they are. And if uncover something huge like Ritossa's scam, we may waive the cost, like for that research that we publish as a public service.
Our verdict:
