Tampa tech CEO, Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, to plead guilty to $8M scam

Meade Lewis, the founder and CEO of Tampa-based mIQroTech, has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding investors by lying in fundraising pitches. 

According to federal court records, Lewis’ hearing is set for Oct. 13 at 2 p.m. in Tampa. A copy of the plea agreement shows he has agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud. He faces 20 years in prison and will have to forfeit $7.9 million.

Lewis was indicted and arrested in May on five counts of wire fraud for allegedly raising more than $7 million from investors by making false statements. With the guilty plea in place, the other charges will be dropped.

It was not clear Tuesday if he was still employed by mICroTech. His profile still appears on its website, but the company did not respond to a request for comment about his status or how the criminal charges are being addressed with clients and employees.

Lewis did not respond to an email to his mIQroTech address or to a message on LinkedIn.

His attorney did not respond either.

According to the plea agreement posted in court records, Lewis founded the energy startup mIQroTech in 2017. The technology company was developing an AI device 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.

As part of the fundraising effort, he 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, Lewis emailed the pitch deck to the head of investments at an unnamed venture capital investment firm in Texas in February 2021. 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.

A second unnamed company was sent the same presentation May 2021 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.)

Lewis founded mIQroTech after serving as chief information technology officer at two unnamed oil and gas firms. He describes himself on his LinkedIn profile and the company’s website as “an Eagle Scout with a passion for the environment, a hardware and sensor expert.”

He made the 2022 Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.

While Lewis bills himself on LinkedIn as a “TedX Talker and American Entrepreneur” and posted that after the Series A fundraising the company was “off to become the next tech unicorn,” it should be noted that he is being represented by the Federal Defenders office.

According to the website for the Federal Defender’s office for the Middle District of Florida, it “provides high quality, client-centered representation to indigent defendants.”

A financial affidavit filed by Lewis is not publicly available.