The Forbes 30 Under 30 curse strikes again. Gökçe Güven, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, has been hit with federal charges including securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The Department of Justice alleges she raised $7 million during a 2024 seed round by presenting investors with fabricated client lists, inflated revenue figures, and two sets of financial books - one real, one for show.
Another rising star on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list has crashed to earth. Kalder CEO Gökçe Güven, just 26 years old, now faces a litany of federal fraud charges that could unravel everything she built since founding her New York-based fintech startup in 2022.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced last week that Güven has been charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated identity theft. At the heart of the allegations sits a $7 million seed round that prosecutors say was fueled by lies, fabricated metrics, and financial sleight of hand.
Kalder pitched itself as a rewards monetization platform, promising to help companies "Turn Your Rewards into a Revenue Engine." The startup claimed it could transform loyalty programs into ongoing revenue streams through partner affiliate sales. According to Axios reporting from November 2024, the company was positioning itself as an innovative player in the crowded fintech rewards space.
Güven's star seemed to be rising. She landed on Forbes' 2025 30 Under 30 list, with the magazine highlighting that her clients included premium chocolatier Godiva and the International Air Transport Association, the trade group representing most of the world's airlines. The company's website boasted backing from prominent VC firms.
But federal prosecutors paint a very different picture of what was happening behind the scenes during Kalder's seed round in April 2024. The pitch deck Güven presented to more than a dozen investors allegedly contained systematic misrepresentations about nearly every key metric.
