Former Tampa tech CEO guilty in $8M scam

A federal judge in Tampa has accepted a guilty plea from Meade Lewis, the founder and CEO of Tampa-based mIQroTech, and set a sentencing date for January.

Lewis, according to a Nov. 2 order signed by U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell, has “been adjudged guilty” of one count of wire fraud. Honeywell set the sentencing date for Jan. 13.

He faces 20 years in federal prison and will have to forfeit $7.9 million, according to a copy of the plea agreement filed in court records in August.

Lewis, who describes himself on LinkedIn as “an Eagle Scout with a passion for the environment, a hardware and sensor expert,” founded mIQroTech in 2017 after serving as chief information technology officer at two unnamed oil and gas firms.

In June 2021, the company announced in a statement that its Series A funding round had “exceeded its fundraising target of $6 million by nearly double.”

Lewis shared the news in a LinkedIn post at the time writing that the funding “solidifies us as a major player in the industry. I couldn’t have done this without my amazing team and all of the friends, investors, and believers that supported the mission.

“Now, off to become the next tech unicorn!”

A year later, he was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list and promoted himself as a “TedX Talker and American Entrepreneur.”

But in May, Lewis was indicted and arrested on five counts of wire fraud for allegedly raising more than $7 million from investors by making false statements.

(Emails to Lewis and mIQroTech have bounced back as undeliverable. The company’s website is no longer active and on Nov. 3 visitors to the site were directed to a Thai gambling site.)

Lewis is being represented by the Federal Defender’s office for the Middle District of Florida.” His attorney did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Here, according to previous reporting from the Business Observer based on the plea agreement, court documents and statements from the U.S. Department of Justice, is what happened:

Lewis founded the energy startup mIQroTech to develop technology that would monitor leaks in oil gas pipelines.

Lewis raised more than $7 million in a round of Series A funding between 2020 and 2021. (This contradicts the June 2021 press release that stated the fundraising goal of $6 million had been nearly doubled.)

As part of the fundraising effort, Lewis prepared pitch decks for potential investors that included financial information about the company. Those decks used by investors to make decisions, according to the plea agreement, contained “false and misleading statements.”

In one example cited in the agreement, in February 2021 Lewis emailed the pitch deck to the head of investments at an unnamed venture capital investment firm in Texas. He followed up with a phone call to review the presentation.

The pitch deck included a pair of slides that showed mIQroTech was billing $6.8 million in annual recurring revenue and that it’s actual revenue the previous year, 2020, was $8.7 million.

The reality was mIQroTech had no annual recurring revenue and “little, if any, actual revenue” in 2020 — less than $100,000 — according to the agreement.

Based on the information in the presentation, the Texas firm invested $3.25 million in the company.

In May 2021, a second unnamed company was sent the same presentation and subsequently spoke to Lewis via videoconference. It invested $1 million.

In all, 12 investors invested $7.91 million in mIQroTech and “none of the investors received a return on their investment,” according to the plea agreement.

Instead, the agreement says the money was transferred into Lewis’ personal accounts and used for his own “enrichment, including the purchase of a home in Temple Terrace.”

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed papers to seize the house that, Hillsborough County property records show, Lewis paid $656,000 for in 2021.