Taxpayer returns unclear as venture capital firm DEMI Fund sues Denver seeking funds

Danielle Shoots, center, talks during Denver Start Up Week on a panel with Raju Patel, left, from Bank of America, which was facilitated by Dope Mom Life’s Dianne Myles, right. In summer 2022, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the political unrest that followed, Denver did something unusual.

“The lawsuit came after trying to make it work, without doing anything on what I found to be illegal, or abuse, and fraudulent of the taxpayers’ money,” Shoots said. “And they just never got it together.

To date, the city has disbursed $6.9 million to the DEMI Fund, according to the fund’s lawsuit. That figure should be more in the $10 million range, according to Denver’s contract with the fund. Shoots provided the annual report to BusinessDen last week, more than two months after first requested. She redacted many of the financial figures in the report, saying she wanted to protect the fund’s other investors. The redactions make it impossible to ascertain Denver’s stake in individual companies and how the investments are performing.

Bevis agreed to a BusinessDen interview in January, but canceled it an hour beforehand and did not respond to subsequent requests to reschedule. He also did not respond to requests to comment for this story.In an interview in January, two months before filing the lawsuit, Shoots told BusinessDen she was not going to renew her contract with the city, which had the option for two one-year renewals.

She often struggled to get timely payments, but in August payments stopped completely. By November, according to the lawsuit, Denver owed DEMI Fund $282,495. She sent additional six-figure invoices for reimbursement in subsequent months.

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