Fresh allegations in an old feud
The legal battle between two anonymous college social apps just got a lot messier. Fizz, the Stanford-born platform where students gossip and network without using their real names, has accused a venture capitalist of playing both sides — and leaking the startup’s private playbook to its direct competitor, Sidechat.
In a new court filing reviewed by TechCrunch, Fizz claims that Jerry Lu, a partner at Seattle-based venture firm Maveron, met with Fizz’s founders under the pretense of exploring an investment. Instead, the startup alleges, Lu turned around and handed over confidential business details to Sidechat’s parent company, Flower Ave Inc.
The filing drops a bomb on a question that haunts every founder who pitches VCs: How safe is the sensitive data you share during fundraising?
What Fizz says Lu took — and where it went
Fizz’s founders, Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer, sat down with Lu in March 2022. According to the complaint, they shared non-public information about everything from user metrics and campus-launch strategies to the company’s ambassador program and product roadmap. Standard stuff for a pitch meeting — if you trust the person across the table.
The filing includes a screenshot of a text message showing Lu passing notes to Flower after that meeting. Fizz claims Lu continued feeding Sidechat information about the startup’s fundraising efforts and other strategic matters long after the initial conversation.
Lu eventually invested in Sidechat’s second seed round in October 2023, per PitchBook data. But Fizz’s lawyers argue he was coordinating with Sidechat as early as 2022 — well before that formal investment.
A mutual acquaintance and a leaked investor deck
The allegations don’t stop with Lu. Fizz also names Jack Burlinson, described as a mutual acquaintance of the founders and Lu, who allegedly shared Fizz’s investor deck and its fall summary for investors with Lu. That information, Fizz claims, then traveled directly to Sidechat.
Burlinson reached out to TechCrunch separately to push back. He said he had “no knowledge that Sidechat existed until this article” and that Lu approached him under false pretenses, claiming he wanted to invest in Fizz. “Jerry collected this information from me under false pretenses,” Burlinson wrote.
Neither Lu nor Maveron responded to requests for comment. Fizz declined to comment on the record.
Sidechat’s new owners say they inherited the mess
Kyle Venn, CEO of both Yik Yak and Sidechat, told TechCrunch that the alleged events happened long before his team acquired Sidechat in 2025. “No one on today’s operating team was involved,” Venn said via email. He stressed that the filing contains allegations, not court findings, and that Sidechat will address the matter through the legal process.
Venn added: “We’re currently focused on making a great product, not suing other apps.”
Flower Ave Inc. acquired Yik Yak, a once-dominant anonymous app, back in 2023. The company now runs both Yik Yak and Sidechat under Venn’s leadership.
Why this case matters for every startup founder
The Fizz lawsuit highlights a structural vulnerability in the venture capital model. Founders routinely hand over detailed financials, growth metrics, and product roadmaps during fundraising. They do it because they have to. But the system relies on a handshake-level assumption: that investors won’t shop that intel to portfolio companies or rivals.
This isn’t the first time that assumption has cracked. Several high-profile disputes in recent years have centered on VCs allegedly sharing confidential data. But the Fizz case is unusually vivid — a text-message screenshot, a named partner at a well-known firm, and a direct pipeline to a competitor.
Fizz originally sued Sidechat in 2023 over a laundry list of alleged dirty tricks: disrupting campus launches, spreading false rumors about hackers accessing Fizz’s data, filing fake spam reports to Instagram, and even paying students to delete the Fizz app. Lu wasn’t named in that original complaint. The new filing adds an insider-trading-style twist to an already bitter rivalry.
What happens next
The case is still in discovery. Fizz’s lawyers are likely to push for more communications between Lu, Maveron, and Sidechat’s previous owners. Sidechat’s new management will try to distance itself from actions taken before the acquisition. And Lu — unless he breaks his silence — will face questions about whether a standard pitch meeting turned into something far less ethical.
For founders watching from the sidelines, the lesson is uncomfortable but clear: Trust, but verify. And maybe think twice before sharing your full product roadmap with a VC who hasn’t committed.
