Selena Gomez accused of fraud by mental-health startup investors

Pop star Selena Gomez is being accused of fraud by investors who claim she failed to deliver on promises to leverage her global celebrity and social-media following to promote her mental-health startup , which collapsed last year.

The startup, Wondermind Global Inc., claimed a valuation of US$95 million when it sought money from investors in 2022 to develop products, including a mobile app, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware federal court. Gomez, one of the founders, served as “chief impact officer” and head of marketing, the suit said.

But Wondermind lied about its prospects, and never developed the products or revenue it had promised, according to the suit filed by five investors. Gomez ignored her contractual obligations to the company in part because of her “long-running personal struggles with her mother,” Mandy Teefey, who was a co-founder and co-chief executive, the investors claim.

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“The initiatives never materialized,” lawyers for the investors wrote in the complaint. “The app was never built. And for three years, while the company quietly collapsed around them, not one of its founders, officers, or directors said a word to the investors.”

Gomez, Teefey and Pierson, who were all named as defendants in the suit, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment. An email to Wondermind wasn’t immediately returned.

In an early-stage financing round in 2022, the company raised US$5 million from the likes of tennis icon Serena Williams’s venture fund, top-tier venture firms Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. That round included US$1.2 million invested by the five individuals who filed the suit, including former Allergan CEO Brent Saunders.