Srinivas Koneru
U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 26429 / December 3, 2025
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Srinivas Koneru, No. 1:25-civ-09327 (S.D.N.Y. filed Nov. 7, 2025)
SEC Charges CEO with Fraud in Connection with SPAC Merger
On November 7, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Srinivas Koneru for allegedly engaging in a fraudulent scheme in connection with the November 2020 business combination of Koneru’s then-private company, Triterras Fintech Pte. Ltd. (“Triterras Fintech”), with Netfin Acquisition Corp. (“Netfin”), a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company (“SPAC”).
According to the SEC’s complaint, Koneru, as Triterras Fintech’s founder and owner, portrayed Triterras Fintech’s principal asset, an online physical commodities trade and trade finance platform called “Kratos,” as transforming the industry with its two modules on which it charged fees: a “Trade Discovery” module that allowed traders to conduct and document trades and a “Trade Finance” module that delivered access to trade financing for traders from lenders on the platform. The complaint alleges that Koneru held out Kratos’ Trade Finance module as a solution for a claimed $1.5 trillion annual shortfall in trade finance funding for traders, a key feature of Kratos and a focus point for investors. Koneru allegedly represented through communications with investors and his approval of public filings that, by August 2020, Kratos had onboarded ten lending funds to the Trade Finance module of its platform and that the volume of financing by lenders in the module totaled $1.1 billion. In reality, as the complaint alleges, only around 10% of the reported Trade Finance module volume and associated revenue involved the ten lending funds, and the limited financing by those funds involved entities majority-owned by Koneru. Koneru allegedly also directed that some of these loans be added to Kratos after the fact, creating the false impression that those loans originated on the platform.
According to the complaint, based on this false picture of Triterras Fintech’s business, Netfin’s shareholders overwhelmingly voted to approve the business combination on November 10, 2020 and less than 3% of Netfin’s public shares were submitted for redemption at a price slightly above $10 per share, which resulted in Koneru’s receipt of $60 million in cash consideration, a controlling equity stake in the surviving public company, Triterras, Inc. (Triterras), and Koneru becoming Triterras’s CEO and Executive Chairman. The complaint alleges that, following the business combination, Koneru, through communications with investors and his approval of Triterras public filings, continued to make misleading statements to the investing public that touted Kratos’s Trade Finance module volume while concealing material facts. The complaint further alleges that, ultimately, Netfin and Triterras investors suffered substantial losses.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges Koneru with violating the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The complaint seeks permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, a civil penalty, and an officer-and-director bar.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Amy Mayer, Kevin Osowski, Kenneth Gottlieb, Elzbieta Wraga, and supervised by Wendy B. Tepperman and Sheldon L. Pollock, all of the New York Regional Office. The SEC’s litigation will be conducted by David Stoelting, Ms. Mayer, and Mr. Osowski, and supervised by Alexander Vasilescu and Daniel Loss, also of the New York Regional Office.