Dear fellow founders,
Please be extremely cautious when a โVCโ reaches out offering to collaborate with your project.
I recently almost fell victim to a venture capital scam involving an entity claiming to be
@MiraeVenture.
They shared their website,
mirae.fund/, which at first glance looked legitimate, including claims of having invested in well-known projects such as
@pendle_fi. Everything appeared credible on the surface.
The initial contact happened back in November. I received a DM from someone presenting themselves as a General Partner, @MarkPengZhao, expressing interest in continuing discussions. We agreed to move the conversation to Telegram, where a group was created to continue communication.
At the beginning, nothing felt off. They took time to read our documentation, asked specific and relevant technical questions, discussed our roadmap, and provided feedback that sounded thoughtful. They even organized what they described as weekly meetings. This was clearly not an automated scam. They invested time and effort to build trust.
Concerns started to arise when they invited us to a meeting that was not dedicated to our project. Instead, two completely unrelated teams were placed in the same call, which is highly unusual for legitimate VC discussions where meetings are typically one-on-one. In addition, these so-called weekly meetings lacked basic professionalism, with no proper calendar invites or standard scheduling tools.
The next meeting was where the real trap appeared.
They initially suggested using Slack. Shortly after, they claimed that another team, supposedly from China, could not use Slack and insisted on switching to an unfamiliar platform called Waaako. This immediately raised a red flag.
Their web version conveniently โglitchedโ and forced us to download a desktop application. When we attempted to run it, our antivirus software blocked it immediately. Their response was to ask us to temporarily disable our antivirus, claiming it was a common installation issue.
That was the point where we stopped everything and cut all communication.
This was not a meeting application. It was malware, very likely an infostealer designed to target private keys, credentials, and other sensitive information.
After this incident, we discovered that multiple other teams experienced the exact same pattern. The same social engineering approach, the same fake VC narrative, the same Waaako platform, and the same request to disable antivirus protection. This is clearly not an isolated case.
A final reminder to all founders:
No legitimate VC will ever ask you to download obscure software.
No legitimate VC will ever ask you to disable your security tools.
If a deal requires bypassing basic safety practices, it is a scam.
Security is non-negotiable. Stay safe.