IITian CEO’s company faces USD 3 million extortion attempt: Who is Varun Vummadi?

Varun Vummadi, CEO of San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup Giga, claimed that there was an extortion plan targeting his company. Vummadi shared in a tweet that a small group of people obtained confidential company information and used it to leak $3 million worth of cryptocurrency. He also shared a screenshot of the email threatening to expose manipulated data and false claims if the demand is not met.

“They have already posted false and defamatory information on Twitter and are now threatening to take pieces of that data, manipulate it out of context, and make it public with wildly false and defamatory claims unless we transfer $3 million to an anonymous crypto account,” the tweet said.

Who is Varun Vummadi?

Varun Vummadi is a co-founder of Indian origin who founded Giga in 2023 along with Esha Manideep. Varun is an IIT Kharagpur graduate. Giga specializes in building voice-based AI agents for businesses. Both founders prioritized their ventures over lucrative offers. While Esha turned down the US$150,000 job, Varun chose Giga over his Stanford PhD and US$525,000 trader role.

Allegations against Giga

Several former employees, including a former employee, have publicly accused Giga of various unethical practices. These allegations include falsifying revenue figures, bribing Fortune 500 companies, and mistreating employees. A former employee claimed the working environment was the ‘most toxic’ he had ever experienced, citing a lack of work-life balance, mandatory 12-hour shifts a day, and promised compensation that did not materialise.

What Varun Vummadi said

Vummadi has denied all false allegations, describing them as ‘extremely false and defamatory’. He noted that following the successful $61 million Series A funding round in November 2025, data was manipulated out of context to harm the company.

$3 million is being extorted from Giga and we want to set the record straight. Many unfounded claims have been made about Giga on Twitter lately. These are done by a small group of people who illegally obtained confidential company information, and now… pic.twitter.com/sLiTuUuHez

— Varun Vummadi (@varunvummadi) December 26, 2025