Who is Rishi Shah, Indian-American Businessman and Harvard Alumni Jailed for Rs 8300Cr Fraud in US

New Delhi: Indian-American businessman Rishi Shah, who is the co-founder of Outcome Health has been convicted in a Rs 8300 crore fraud case concerning his advertising startup. Rishi Shah, alumnus of Harvard University, was indicted on more than 121 counts of fraud and money laundering. Know all about the businessman who has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Shah was convicted along with the other co-founders of his company, Shradha Agarwal and Brad Purdy in April 2023; Shradha Agarwal was sentenced to three years in a halfway house while Purdy was sentenced to two years and three months in prison. A civil lawsuit had also been filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against all the co-founders of Outcome Health and Ashik Desai, former Chief Growth Officer.

Son of a doctor, Rishi Shah attended the Summer Economics Programme at Harvard University in 2005 and then studied at Northwestern University for a year. He dropped out to start his own business and founded Outcome Health (earlier known as Context Media Health) in 2006.  A company that installed televisions to stream health ads targeting patients, Outcome Health grew significantly under Shah.

Five years after starting Outcome Health, Rishi Shah co-founded JumpStart Ventures in 2011 and made more than 60 direct investments in education technology, media and health technology. Serving on the Board of Directors of Young Presidents Organisation (YPO), 1871, 38-year-old Rishi Shah was exposed for his fraudulent activities at Outcome Health by the Wall Street Journal in 2017.

Investors including Goldman Sachs and Alphabet had taken action against Rishi Shah's company for fraud. They had revealed that the Indian-American businessman and his co-founder had gained a lot of money and profited while the investors were left with stakes that were worthless.

Rishi Shah, when presented in court, said in a statement, "The culture I created allowed people on my team to think it was okay to create false data in response to client questions." He also said that he was ashamed and embarrassed by his failure which led to 'fatal mistakes'. A budding star in Democratic circles, Rishi Shah led a lavish lifestyle with private aircraft, yachts and a $10 million home; his net worth, based on bogus financial statements was reported to be more than $4 billion in 2016 according to prosecutors.