Citron Shorts VCX, Calls On SEC To Investigate If Fundrise Is Paying Influencers To Promote The Fund

Fundrise Innovation Fund (VCX) tanked more than 37% in Thursday’s opening trade after Citron Research on Thursday announced that it is short the public venture fund that provides investors with access to top private technology companies.

The short seller highlighted in a post on X that VCX is currently trading at more than $400, even though its assets are worth $19.

Citron noted that the fund’s sponsor, Fundrise Advisors LLC, was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2023 for violations related to paid solicitation.

It urged the SEC’s Division of Enforcement to investigate whether Fundrise is currently paying influencers, YouTube creators, newsletters, or any content publishers to promote VCX.

VCX’s top holding is Anthropic at 20.7%, followed by Databricks at 17.7% and OpenAI at 9.9%, according to data from Fundrise’s website.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around the Fundrise Innovation Fund trended in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory at the time of writing.

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