After that, employees began getting suspicious of Shafi’s claim of 20 million monthly active users. That’s when theissuing a probe as to whether or not IRL misled investors. In April of this year, the company’s board of directors suspended Shafi and appointed a new acting CEO.
Thanks to the inflated numbers and half-baked concept, IRL is shutting down and taking its 19 million bots with it. The company says it’s returning capital to shareholders, but nobody knows how much money is left in the coffers. Shafi once said that the company had “more than enough cash to last well into 2024” but he also touted 20 million active users so, you know, grain of salt and all of that.
This has been a tough week for SoftBank. The firm also invested nearly $400 million in a company that manufactures robot pizza makers. The company shuttered and isagain leaving a giant question mark as to how much SoftBank would recoup from its original investment. That adds up to a potential loss of $500 million in a single week.