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Scott Shuey · · 16 min readChaos at Mark Cuban-backed NFT startup after founders, directors lock legal horns
Mintable executives (from left) CEO Zach Burks, COO Jiawen Ngeow, and CFO Chui Yue Bond with ex-board members Jeremy Khoo and Adam Gartenberg / Image credit: Tech in Asia
Intentionally sabotaging a multimillion investment. A company coup led by the board of directors. Internal funds used to promote a website featuring illegal drugs. A firm held to ransom by a CEO.
These allegations were part of a long legal battle within Mintable, a pioneering NFT marketplace in Singapore, that pitted CEO Zach Burks against COO Jiawen Ngeow, former CFO Chui Yue Bond, and two former board members.
In January, Burks filed his lawsuit in Singapore after the collapse of a series B round. Meanwhile, Ngeow filed the second – and current – lawsuit in September, attempting to force Burks into opening Mintable’s financial records for an audit by a third party.
On December 1, both parties reached a settlement on a “no-admission-as-to-liability basis.” But the battle isn’t quite over: Even after the dust has settled, the future of the company is in doubt.
Thousands of pages of court documents seen by Tech in Asia shed light on the contentious issues that have emerged from the first trial, many of which remain unresolved.
This story is based on court statements or affidavits filed by Burks, Ngeow, and Bond as well as ex-board members Jeremy Khoo and Adam Gartenberg.
An NFT pioneer
Founded in 2018, NFT marketplace Mintable arrived on the scene not long after OpenSea, which became the most recognized player in the world.
In June 2021, billionaire Mark Cuban led Mintable’s series A round that raised over US$14 million. Built to help creators who d0 not have the coding skills to monetize their work, Mintable had over 700,000 NFTs at the time.
Billionaire Mark Cuban was a series A investor in Mintable. / Photo credit: Bryan Solis
Problems began showing up in 2022. Mintable had been posting monthly losses and revenue declines since January, and the market for NFTs started to crash in February.
But as Mintable was raising funds in June, Burks made a fateful decision. Even though Mintable was an NFT startup, he decided that the company should get into the crypto market and trade Ethereum, according to Khoo in an affadavit.
But Burks was supposed to get investor approval before doing so, as the shareholder agreements that the company had signed did not cover crypto trading. On June 13, he sent the request to all investors including Khoo. This was one month after the collapse of TerraLabs sent crypto markets into free fall.
Request denied
The first signs of trouble
Mark Cuban enters the chat again
Crypto allegations
Series B goes bust
War breaks out
Burks strikes back
Who has the right to sue?
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While Mintable’s CEO and its board of directors have reached a settlement, the future remains uncertain for the Singapore-based NFT marketplace.
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