Synapse CEO cofounded robotics startup is seeking funding with inflated statements regarding GM partnership.

• A humanoid robotics startup founded by the CEO of a bankrupt fintech firm has sought funding from Silicon Valley investors by asserting connections with General Motors and an impending investment, which was denied by the automaker.
• According to CNBC, Foundation Robotics Labs is looking to raise the remaining $1 million for an $11 million seed round, with GM and Tribe Capital already committed to investing.
• According to GM and one of the startup's founders, most of Foundation's claims about the automaker are overstated or false.

The humanoid robotics startup founded by the CEO of the bankrupt fintech firm Synapse has sought funding from Silicon Valley investors by asserting close ties and an imminent investment from an automaker, but these claims have been rejected by the automaker.

According to CNBC, Foundation Robotics Labs is looking to raise the remaining $1 million for an $11 million seed round, with GM and Tribe Capital already committed to investing.

The startup announced that it is constructing humanoid robots to assume work tasks that humans typically perform in factories, warehouses, and eventually homes.

The fundraising document stated that GM would be the first customer of the Foundation, with a targeted $300 million purchase order, and would also provide access to its factories to help train its robots.

""Our team is currently in GM's Mexico factory to collect ground truth data, and we are the only company in this space with such a dataset," Foundation stated in the document."

'Fabricated' claims

According to GM and one of the startup's founders, most of Foundation's claims about the automaker are overstated or false.

According to a GM spokesman, although GM met with Foundation executives a few times, it hasn't allowed data collection from its factories, has no agreements for robot orders, and isn't planning an investment.

"According to Darryll Harrison, a spokesman for GM, the company has never invested in Foundation Robotics and has no plans to do so. In fact, GM has never had any agreement with the company. Any claims to the contrary are false."

In a phone interview with CNBC, Mike LeBlanc, one of Foundation's cofounders, admitted that he was embarrassed by the existence of marketing materials that exaggerated their relationship with GM.

"What Foundation Robotics is, according to LeBlanc, is the incredible engineering work that has been done and serves as the foundation of the company."

New Foundation

In April, Synapse CEO Sankaet Pathak, Tribe Capital CEO Arjun Sethi, and LeBlanc, cofounder of Cobalt Robotics, founded Foundation.

Industrial companies are investing 25% of their capital in automated systems amidst a trend towards automation in the US corporate sector.

An email group of about 1,500 startup executives and investors received a misleading fundraising pitch this month, which was later confirmed by someone with direct knowledge of Tribe Capital.

Neither Tribe Capital nor its cofounder Sethi responded to requests for comment, and Pathak did not reply to messages seeking a comment.

Fintech meltdown

After the collapse of Synapse, a fintech company owned by Pathak, the robotics startup gains attention as it allows brands like Mercury and to provide banking services through FDIC-backed banks.

In 2014, Synapse was cofounded by Pathak. This year, the company went bankrupt due to the departure of some of its major clients, including Mercury, over disputes regarding customer balances.

Over 100,000 Americans have been left without access to their $265 million in deposits for more than a month due to the mess that led to the bankruptcy of the firm, as stated by the trustee overseeing the proceedings.

The trustee reports that there is a $85 million shortfall between the funds held by Synapse's partner banks and the amounts owed to depositors, with no explanation yet for the missing funds.

The ongoing Synapse failure has raised eyebrows among some founders and investors in the startup community regarding Pathak's move to his next venture.