Beyond “Fake It Till You Make It”: How VC Culture and Investor Pressures Drive Startup Fraud

The traditional Silicon Valley ethos of rapid scaling and aspirational pitching has come under intense academic scrutiny. A groundbreaking collaborative report from Imperial College London and France’s Emlyon Business School maps out the structural mechanisms behind venture-backed startup fraud , revealing how high-pressure investor dynamics and lax oversight directly incentivize deceptive practices. The publication arrives amid heightened discourse across tech networks like X (formerly Twitter)