Tell HN: YC company Instavest had my money, help recover please

25 points by basicsbeauty ↗ HN
Hello everyone,

Long ago I invested using this a YC company Instavest, it looks like they are no longer active.

Can someone please help recover the funds?

8 comments

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Can't help you on the YC front, but have you tried doing an unclaimed-property search in California (their HQ) or whichever state you were in when you made this investment?

https://www.usa.gov/unclaimed-money

You should hire a lawyer not ask codemonkeys
Useful answers like these is why you ask codemonkeys :)
Well, investing in private companies for equity, requires taking a risk. Looks like your risk was very high and company went bust. For all intents and purposes, you have lost your investment. If there is anything left over from the dissolution of this business, it must b being held by a board of trustees. You need to make your research and figure out if such residual money exists somewhere and if it does, go after it, preferably with a lawyer;s help, if your investment amount justifies it.
Got the answer: Funds are with Tradierbrokerage.com

Also clarification: Didn't invest in Instavest, rather Instavest is a trading platform.

You should file a complaint with the CFTC cftc.org I think you can also do a lookup on their site to see if there are any open cases and investigations.
It looks like it's not in the guidelines or FAQs anymore (perhaps because it's generally-enough understood that HN is largely independent of YC), but it's outside the purpose of HN to try to contact or raise personal complaints about YC companies.

There are contact details for YC on the YC homepage: https://www.ycombinator.com/contact/