I had to consider long and hard before posting this here, its not exactly the normal route in a situation such as this but then, this is not exactly a normal situation either.
I am the primary investor in Molecule 8, the one that Vimal mentioned in his FB post.
I have to tread carefully for what I can say in a public forum as I am currently getting advice on instigating legal proceedings against Vijay Chadha and his brother Ajay Chadha.
However I may need some assistance and further information which I hope that some members in this forum may be able to provide.
A lot of speculation has been made that Molecule 8 had little or no funds at startup and that is the reason why things happened the way that they have. This is far from the truth though.
A total of $2 Million USD was invested into Molecule 8, $1.6 Million of which was from myself and another close friend. I had to borrow much of the money from family, friends and banks as the initial amount Vijay predicted would be needed was around $700,000 to $800,000 but he quickly needed more and more funds.
I know people will ask how I have been so gullible and really I feel very stupid at this moment. But I have known Vijay for something like 25 years back from when we travelled to Japan together when the first Sony Playstation was released. I had grown to trust him implicitly over the years, as much as anyone I had known in my life so when he explained the business model he had in mind for Molecule 8, I was very excited to be involved.
Molecule 8 was supposed to be the company that all collectors wanted, that offered real value and quality in everything that we produced.
In the initial stages, Vijay consulted with me about everything but once he moved to LA, he slowly but surely started making decisions unilaterally and taking involvement away from me. This ranged from making bullish claims on the website to taking licenses without my knowledge or approval, i.e. the Tick and Travis Touchdown. I did not even learn about Travis Touchdown until I saw a post on this forum and I did not know that we had even commissioned any David Bowie sculpts until I saw the image on K. A. Kim’s FB post.
Once I was unable to invest any further money, Vijay started to become difficult to contact. He would ignore phone calls, texts and emails for increasingly extended periods of time. I was told much later by an artist that travelled with him to Hong Kong in the early set up stages but who has since fallen out with him due to a lack of payment that Vijay confided in him that he wanted to find a way to get me out of the company.
I have been gathering as much information as I could over the last few months and have become increasingly concerned as to what has actually happened to the initial investment if we owe so much to so many people
Much more information on this has become evident in the last couple of days of course triggered by Vimal’s FB post and I am very grateful to him for that.
That we have not paid K. A. Kim, the artist who was mainly responsible for the company’s high profile during startup is simply beyond repugnant. I was not aware that this had been done and since finding out, I have reached out to and apologised to her for this. An apology is far short of what she is owed though of course.
It is true that a lot of money had to be paid for licenses but even allowing for that and the other money I can see that has been spent, there is something in the region of $1,000,000 USD that I have been unable to account for. Note that I am not saying anything untoward has been done with the funds, just that I am unable to account for it at this moment in time.
There is much more that I could write here but as mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have to be careful not to say anything that could adversely affect litigation.
What I would like to request is information from anyone here that has any knowledge of people or companies that are owed money and anything else that may potentially be helpful or relevant.
Please PM me if you have anything that you think may help, if you need to keep it confidential just mention so. I will respect all confidences, I just want to get to the bottom of this.
If I am able to recover monies via the company, from Vijay personally or through the court, I will try my best to make sure all those that are owed monies will be paid.
Thank you in advance for any help and information that anyone is able to provide.
