June 19, 2014 by Brad Perriello
Investors in a life sciences venture capital firm fire its founder, Stephen Burrill, after a Burrill fund’s managers allegedly uncover $20 million in misappropriations.
The investors behind a $283 million venture capital fund ousted its high-flying founder, Stephen Burrill, after the fund’s manager allegedly discovered that Burrill and his company’s chief counsel and its CFO misappropriated nearly $20 million from the fund, according to a lawsuit filed in a California state court.
The lawsuit, filed by the managing director for Burrill & Co.’s Fund II and Fund III, Ann Hanham, accuses Burrill, longtime outside-counsel-turned-staff-counsel Victor Hebert and CFO Helena Sen of diverting $19.2 million from Fund III “over a period of several years, ostensibly (1) “to ‘prepay’ for management services not yet rendered, and (2) to fund unspecified and unauthorized loans,” according to the lawsuit.
