SEC Says VC Firm's Ex-Nanny Moved $1.3 Million Into Her Own Accounts

The SEC alleges that Ellen Polcari, hired as a venture firm's executive assistant a decade after she started nannying for its founder's children, moved roughly $1.28 million of investor money into her own accounts and spent it on online gambling, shopping, and restaurant meals.

The complaint, filed in federal court in New Jersey on Sept. 18, states that the funds involved raised about $28.7 million from at least 85 investors, mostly high-net-worth individuals and family offices, between April 2023 and March 2025. The SEC does not name the two venture firms, both based in Montana.

According to the SEC's account, the fund manager brought Polcari into the firm as an "executive assistant" about a year into her nannying job. Her responsibilities grew over the next decade to cover the entire back office. She sent offering documents and wire instructions, tracked down subscription agreements, and wired capital to portfolio companies.

By April 2023, Polcari had allegedly become the sole signatory on a new fund's bank account. On the application, she described herself as a "Partner with Control of the Entity" and an 80% owner of the fund — without the owner's knowledge, the SEC says. Regulators claim neither the VC owner nor the firm's co-owner had access to or signatory authority on the fund's bank account.

The concentration of control went further. Polcari listed the fund's mailing address as her own home, according to regulators. The firm's 2024 Form ADV listed her as "Controller" and "Regulatory Contact Person." When the unnamed owner opened a second VC firm in the summer of 2024, Polcari filed the necessary documents, opened more bank accounts, and again named herself as beneficial owner on some of them. She and the VC owner were the only two employees, and by early 2025 Polcari's email address was the only contact listed on the firm's website.

The alleged theft began almost immediately after money arrived. On Oct. 1, 2024, one fund received its first $250,000 investment. Within a day, Polcari allegedly moved $28,000 to her own bank account. Two days later, the same fund took in $800,000; over the following three weeks, she allegedly transferred $97,500 of it to her own accounts. That fund raised $1.34 million in total, and the SEC says about $768,000 went to Polcari and her bills — including roughly $131,000 in online-gambling expenses paid directly from the fund's account.

By December 2024, the fund lacked sufficient capital to make its designated portfolio-company investment. The SEC alleges Polcari moved nearly $1 million out of four other funds to cover the shortfall. Regulators also claim she forged the owner's DocuSign e-signature to transfer portfolio-company shares to her own business, Forks Up LLC, and sold most of that stock for $56,000.

The scheme unraveled in late February 2025, when the VC owner and Polcari learned the SEC was probing the firm. Three weeks later, Polcari's lawyer informed the owner she had taken a "significant amount" from the firms and the funds, according to the complaint. She was fired. On March 30, the SEC says Polcari called the owner and admitted to some of the conduct.

Fortune reporter Amanda Gerut, who first reported the story, wrote that she made efforts to reach Polcari and was unsuccessful, and received no response from the firm that listed Polcari in its 2024 Form ADV. That firm's website says it has invested in more than 90 companies over 16 years, including Ripple, Dollar Shave Club, Life360, and Liquid Death.

If the allegations hold up, the case is an extreme one — but the mechanics are not exotic. A small firm, a founder focused on deals, and a single trusted person running everything on the back end. For limited partners and anyone allocating to emerging managers, the due-diligence question is straightforward and worth verifying every time: who can move money, and who is checking that it goes where it should?