The board of directors of messaging app startup IRL appointed Scott Kauffman as an acting CEO, taking up the post vacated by Abraham Shafi.
Per The Information, the board suspended Shafi after a report emerged highlighting a pattern of misconduct. News of Shafi's departure from the role weeks after a former IRL employee, Nicholas Grant, accused the company of using bots to inflate user numbers.
In the unfair dismissal complaint, Grant alleged that the company fired him two months after he alerted IRL's executives about the presence of a high percentage of bots.
- IRL informed investors last year that its app had 20 million monthly active users. However, Sensor Tower estimates the number of actual users to be between one million to two million.
- At its most recent funding round in 2021, IRL was valued at $1.2B.
- To date, the firm has raised $200M from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund and Founders Fund.
