Infinite Reality: The $15 billion company no one in Silicon Valley has heard of

When a venture-backed startup announces a large investment or fundraising round like this one, there is scant requirement for verification or documentation. Only the company and its investors are required to know the terms of the deal, though the SEC has broad oversight over any transaction of securities and can demand more information—which it has already done with Infinite Reality after it proclaimed it was worth $1.9 billion in December 2022. 

Over the past few years, venture money has poured into tech startups at an extraordinary pace. Ten years ago, the total raised by tech firms was $87 billion; five years ago, it was $175 billion; by last year it had exploded to $209 billion. That’s a lot of cash flying around, and much of it is being invested in startups that few outside the industry have ever heard of. 

Interestingly, one area that has seen declining interest from venture capitalists is metaverse-focussed startups like Infinite Reality. Blame Mark Zuckerberg’s epic failure. Since 2020, Meta has blown more than $50 billion trying to build a virtual world that he termed the “metaverse”, even going so far as to rename Facebook as Meta in 2021. But the effort has largely been a bust, plagued by technical glitches, limited user interest and strange avatars with no legs. Meta’s main metaverse product, Horizon Worlds, had fewer than 200,000 monthly users in 2022, accor­ding to the Wall Street Journal, the last time anyone reported a number. Overall, venture capital and growth equity fun­ding for metaverse firms fell from $5.6 billion to just $1.4 billion between 2022 and 2024, accor­ding to PitchBook. Which makes the amount supposedly raised by Infinite Reality even more unusual. 

Nearly all of Infinite Reality’s revenue can be attributed to the dozen or so startups it has acquired since 2022. Those deals have brought the firm some headlines—such as when it announced a deal to buy Napster this spring. (Despite its high name recognition, Napster is only the 39th-top-grossing music app on the App Store these days, accor­ding to Data.AI.) 

Infinite Reality itself is almost unknown within the industry, and the fundraising announcement came as a shock. “No one had heard about it,” says Sara Gherghelas, an analyst with Lithuania-based metaverse and Web3 research firm DappRadar. 

It was also the first time that Herman Narula, founder of Improbable, a SoftBank- and Andreessen Horowitz–backed unicorn metaverse developer, had heard of the startup. “We have run hundreds of metaverse events with some of the biggest brands in the world with tens of thousands of people over the last year. I have thus far never encountered this company either as a supplier or a customer, nor has any partner mentioned them,” Narula says. Similarly, Yat Siu—founder of unicorn Animoca Brands, one of the most active investors in Web3 and metaverse companies, noted that Infinite Reality’s fundraising announcement “didn’t make any ripples in our industry”. At a recent “office hour” session offering free tech support for Infinite Reality’s core product, there were two attendees, one of whom was a Forbes reporter. 

Infinite Reality’s chief marketing officer, Karina Kogan, insists the company no longer “considers itself a metaverse company” and is pushing its AI ties. She says people might not have heard of the company but they may have heard of its subsidiaries. 

John Acunto, co-founder and CEO, Infinite Reality Image: Johan Acunto by Infinite Reality

Infinite Reality first emailed Forbes announ­cing its $3 billion finan­cing on January 8. It reached out again on February 11, this time pitching Acunto, who then had a 12 percent stake in the Boca Raton, Florida–based company, as a “prime candidate” for Forbes’s Billionaires list. 

That’s when we began seriously looking into Acunto and Infinite Reality, reaching out to more than 60 investors, industry insiders, partners, customers, VCs, former employees and lawyers—and speaking to more than 30. Forbes also had multiple calls with Infinite Reality and Acunto. Despite discussions to set up a call with the $3 billion investor, Infinite Reality begged off, citing confidentiality, the investor’s travel schedule and later “concerns around the tenor of your article”. 

Only after Forbes published our initial investigation in April did Infinite Reality issue a press release, claiming that “following high media interest, Infinite Reality’s $3B investor has come forward” and that Sterling Select, a New York “venture development” firm, “represents the significant $3 billion investment”. 

As we kept digging, we uncovered a convoluted story of a company for which every answer—about its funding and valuation to its investors, customers and even the CEO’s background—only raises more questions. “There’s a lot of things that are uncommon,” says CMO Kogan when asked about the unusual funding round, “but we’re not a common company.” 

Acunto’s career has been blighted by questionable credentials and a stack of unpaid bills that goes back more than two decades. A bio provided by a company representative and a 2022 document filed with the SEC claim that he received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Florida after earning a master’s degree in data science from Harvard. Neither university has a record of him. Acunto told Forbes that the bio was produced in error because Infinite Reality was short-staffed. “That’s absolutely ridiculous that they took that draft and put it in there.” Perhaps. But the same sentence appears in a 2024 document for a school his children attended. Acunto claims he “went to a lot of different schools” but will not say where—or if—he attended college. 

Acunto, who was reluctant to talk to Forbes about his past, ran a string of digital advertising and entertainment businesses, none of which amounted to much. They did, however, lead to lawsuits in at least six states against his former companies and Acunto personally, several of which alleged non-payment of various bills. The cases dragged on for years; two were, in fact, just resolved, with Acunto paying $400,000 in September to settle a 2006 case involving now-defunct advertising business Adsouth and $780,000 in April related to a 2010 suit involving a transcription software company. “Anybody who has sued me probably had in their mind a good reason,” Acunto says. “I don’t have a negative word to say about anybody.” 

Infinite Reality’s story begins in 2019, when Acunto and some investors bought a bankrupt social media company called Tsu, later renamed Display Social. The business brought in just $150,000 in revenue its first three years combined. In its SEC filings, Display Social claimed to have raised $44 million by 2021. Forbes reached out to four venture funds listed on PitchBook as early backers of the company that would later become Infinite Reality. None returned our calls; one appears to be defunct. 

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 Armed with stock supposedly backed by millions in funding, Acunto went shopping. He acquired production company Thunder Studios and nascent metaverse firm Infinite Reality in an all-stock deal for $235 million in January 2022 that valued his company at $1 billion, per an SEC filing. He renamed the combined firm Infinite Reality and then acquired a small e-sports company called ReKTGlobal in July that year in a $470 million all-stock transaction that Acunto claimed doubled Infinite Reality’s valuation. That fall, Infinite Reality filed to go public via a reverse merger; Acunto says he pulled it in December 2022 due to turbulent markets. It filed again to go public via a special purpose acquisition company later that same month, but that deal also never happened. 

In 2024, Infinite Reality snapped up more companies in all-stock deals: Drone Racing League ($250 million), which once had a short-lived ESPN deal but hasn’t staged an event in over two  years; Landvault ($450 million), an advertising group behind such marketing stunts as a virtual Heineken “bar”; Action Face, a bankrupt startup that turns selfies into 3D avatars or small plastic figurines ($10 million) and Ethereal Engine ($75 million), which enables users to build metaverse-style spaces with less code. Each deal upped Infinite Reality’s self-reported valuation. 

By last summer, the company claimed to be worth over $5 billion. “That’s your fake imaginary number you think you’re worth,” says a former executive at one of the acquired companies who was laid off from Infinite Reality in 2024. “I and many of my peers at the organisation all looked around and went, ‘Boy, a lot of this feels like a scam’.” Infinite Reality insists the merger prices and company valuations are fair and that everyone had the opportunity to conduct their own due diligence. Matthew Schwartz, the Gibson Dunn lawyer who represented Infinite Reality in the deals, declined to comment.

Last year, Infinite Reality paid $250 million in stock for The Drone Racing League, which had at least $10 million in debt and outstanding vendor bills. Its first event since the acquisition, in Miami in February, was postponed indefinitely without explanationw Image: Steven Paston/Pa Images/Getty Images

Throughout this period, although it was represen­ting itself to the SEC as being worth billions, Infinite Reality struggled to pay some bills, per a handful of lawsuits. Investment firm Summit Partners accused Infinite Reality of not allowing it to sell back $27 million worth of shares. Per a December 2022 complaint, amended in January 2025, Infinite Reality asserted that it did “not have the funds or the financing to pay all or any portion” of the sum. That case was dropped in mid-February; “payments are being made,” says Kogan, Infinite Reality’s CMO. 

In early 2024, investment bank TD Cowen sued over unpaid fees tied to the ReKTGlobal acquisition. Infinite Reality was ordered to pay $3.3 million in December. Seven other contractors or vendors sued for non-payment between late 2023 and May 2025. “It was clear [from] my limited interactions that they had very serious cash flow issues, and they had designed their contracts to account for that,” says one former contractor who worked with Infinite Reality. 

Kogan acknowledges “cash flow problems,” emphasising they’re not uncommon for a startup. She adds that given the number of acquisitions the company made, it’s not surprising for non-payment lawsuits and similar issues to “come out of the woodwork”, and that the company is working through them—which takes time, not because they don’t have the cash, but rather because it’s “a lot of paperwork”. 

For his part, Acunto dismisses the lawsuits as a cost of doing business. “You’re gonna expect us to have vendor lawsuits. That’s normal... you know, whatever. Stuff like that happens all the time.” 

Infinite Reality’s website touted that it has “top-tier investors” in sports, media and entertainment such as Lerer Hippeau, Lux Capital, talent agency CAA, sometime Shark Tank judge Matt Higgins’ and real estate billionaire Stephen Ross’s RSE Ventures and Exor, the Italian billionaire Agnelli family’s investment fund. But these big-name investors became Infinite Reality shareholders only after the company acquired Drone Racing League, in which they had invested years earlier. None appears to have invested directly in Infinite Reality, and few had much to say about the startup: Lux Capital confirmed its investment through the Drone Racing League in 2016. The rest, including Exor, whose logo was incorrect on Infinite Reality’s website, declined to comment or did not respond. The site’s investor page disappeared after Forbes started asking questions. 

Infinite Reality hyped the “great things” it did with UK soccer team Manchester City at its February shareholder meeting. But a spokesperson for Man City emailed Forbes that the company is not an “official partner or supplier” and “has no further affiliation with the club”. A third-party contractor employed Infinite Reality’s subsidiary Thunder Studios for a “small part” of a multi-partner project. 

Asked to explain the financials behind his company’s valuation, Acunto responds, “Let me help give you the two and two, then you can figure the four out.” He touts a “five-year strategic partnership” with Google that “played a large part in the valuation”. At a December investor presentation, he went further, telling the audience that “Google is not just a partner, but Google is a customer... and bringing us to all their customers.” Google has a different take, describing Infinite Reality to Forbes as just an ordinary customer of Google Cloud. 

The SEC has its own questions, filing a lawsuit in February alleging that Infinite Reality failed to respond to a subpoena demanding financials to support an earlier $1.9 billion valuation that was part of the scrapped SPAC. According to the filing, “the Commission has obtained information showing that certain individuals and/or entities may have been or may be, among other things, making false statements of material fact and omitting to disclose material facts to investors.” As of press time the case was on hold after Infinite Reality agreed to hand over key documents. Its spokesperson Gillian Sheldon wrote to Forbes, “There is no allegation that anyone violated any laws, including at Infinite Reality... Once we have complied with the subpoena, we expect the [lawsuit] to be dismissed.”

The biggest question remains the identity of the $3 billion investor. According to Shah, Infinite Reality’s co-founder and chief business officer, it was a multi-step $3.4 billion deal that started with a $350 million fundraise announced in July 2024 coming from a multi-family office. It was followed by $500 million in October and the rest in January, apparently both from the same anonymous investor who was also involved in the July round. Shah even read a statement at the February shareholder meeting from that investor without naming him: “Please know that my confidence in the board and executive team is unwavering, and I am always available through appropriate channels to contribute to strategic discussions or provide additional financial support as needed.” 

In January, Infinite Reality issued a press release about the $3 billion investment, citing Michael Sullivan, a partner at Ashcroft, a Boston-based law firm started by former US Attorney General John Ashcroft. Sullivan was quoted as saying that the investor, an Ashcroft client, “was particularly impressed by what he believes is [Infinite Reality’s] revolutionary product”, which assists in “empowering users and redefining ownership in the digital age”. 

Only he didn’t say that. Sullivan denied being involved in the deal. “I knew nothing about a funding round and the accompanying announcement,” Sullivan wrote to Forbes in a March email. “The quote in the press release was not from me. In fact I had not reviewed or agreed to it when it was first published.” In a later email to Forbes, Ashcroft managing partner Lori Day confirmed that their “client transferred a total of $3.36 billion US dollars to Infinite Reality”, citing banking transfer receipts (which they declined to show Forbes) but clarified that the firm did not “advise our client on these agreements, or the transaction itself”. 

Ashcroft has no legal duty to investigate the legitimacy of these receipts or even whether the transaction actually occurred, since it wasn’t involved in the deal and is not soliciting further investment. 

The announcement that came out after Forbes’s April story was supposed to answer questions about the investor. But it’s challenging to parse. It first indicated that the “investment” was represented by Sterling Select, a New York–based “venture development firm” that describes itself as helping those without “reputational or economic exposure” find funding. (It later revised the release, replacing investment with investor.)

The press release also claimed that Sterling Select is “associated with” Sterling Equities, whose co-founders are Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon, former principal owners of the New York Mets. (Both were sued as part of the Bernie Madoff scandal and agreed to pay $162 million in restitution in 2012.) According to Sterling Equities’ attorney Gregory Nero, the firm is “not part of the $3 billion investor group in Infinite Reality” and has no plans to invest. The firm’s only connection to Sterling Select is that one of its partners, Saul Katz’s son David, co-founded the latter. Confused yet? 

Meanwhile, Sterling Select has no website but apparently helped start ReKTGlobal, which was later bought by Infinite Reality. It sued ReKTGlobal in 2021 for non-payment. The parties settled in 2024. Katz’ co-founder Chris Steele touts, on his LinkedIn page, just two companies working with Select: Infinite Reality and digital media startup SPAT Media (which no longer works with it). Neither Sterling Select nor its principals Chris Golden and Steele responded to a request for comment. CMO Kogan later told Forbes that Sterling Select isn’t the $3 billion investor but introduced Infinite Reality to it. 

On April 28, Infinite Reality filed a Form D with the SEC, self-reporting that it had sold $3.36 billion in an offering that began last September. If it really raised that much money, the firm’s financial troubles should be in the past. But Infinite Reality is still being hit with non-payment suits. 

This spring, a contractor sued Infinite Reality and its Drone Racing League subsidiary, alleging non-payment of around $250,000 for invoices dated between October 2024 and March 2025. The court entered a default judgment on May 1 after Infinite Reality didn’t respond. In April, a company involved in Infinite Reality’s failed SPAC sued over a $7 million fee, and accounting firm CFGI sued for over $2.3 million in allegedly unpaid bills; Infinite Reality countersued CFGI for unjust enrichment and larger damages. 

None of this is deterring Infinite Reality from making new deals: In March, it bought Napster for over $200 million; in mid-April, it announced a $500 million (all-stock) deal to buy Touchcast, which has made AI website widgets and avatars for clients including Accenture. 

Then, on May 15, when it announced it was renaming itself as Napster, the company told investors in a call that they could sell back their shares at $20 a pop (before fees) starting in June, thanks to an unidentified investor. It’s the fourth time since 2022 it has promised to let investors cash out, but so far all have fallen through. Assuming Infinite Reality’s share count hasn’t materially changed in the last couple of months, that would imply an $18 billion valuation. 

“That’s bizarre,” says Ed Zimmerman, a startup-investing lawyer at Lowenstein Sandler, of Infinite Reality’s valuation. “But maybe it’s the greatest company in the world.” Or maybe it’s a house of cards.