Goodwin Blocked My Settlement

A client owed me $65K. A court ruled in my favor. Goodwin helped them vanish. Techstars let them in anyway.

Years ago, I took on a startup referred by a trusted Techstars founder. We had a signed contract. My team delivered under pressure while they pleaded poverty. Then they ghosted me.

I sued and won in court. But collecting was another story—Goodwin Procter advised them to stall, delay, and disappear. We would’ve had to re-litigate just to enforce a ruling that was already in our favor.

Here’s the kicker:

The founder rebranded the company—and got accepted into Techstars. No consequences. No accountability.

Techstars claims to have a rigorous due diligence process. But it missed a public court judgment, a founder with a paper trail, and a dispute involving an operator inside its own network.

I wasn’t some outsider. I’d worked with Techstars companies for years. When I brought this up to David Cohen, I was told to “file a Say Anything report.”

Nothing happened.

So: what does “due diligence” mean in practice?

Who gets protected?

And how many skeletons are walking around in startup accelerators?

More tales to come...

David Cohen Maelle Gavet Matt Kozlov Andres Barreto Adam H. Phillips Kerty Levy Misti Cain