Serial entrepreneur Chris Carson secretly sold $1.3 million worth of his stake in his private company by forging board documents, then used the funds to buy a gold Bentley Continental, a McLaren 750S and an Aston Martin, per a new lawsuit.

His company, Hayden AI, has a $20 million contract with New York City for 300 bus cameras so they can send tickets to people parked in the bus lane. The San Francisco-based firm fired Carson for allegedly selling some of his stake without permission and forging board members’ signatures to cover his tracks, then sued him in California state court.

Carson apparently needed the money to finance the purchase of a new $2.7 million home in Boca Raton, Florida. Along with the high-end cars, he also bought a Ducati motorcycle, plus luxury watches, designer handbags and jewelry, the complaint says.

Hayden is also accusing him of stealing 41 gigabytes of customer data and contracts, which he used to start a rival company similarly selling tech services to cities. Shortly after he was fired, he raised $8 million in seed funding for the new venture, EchoTwin AI, in a round led by Metis Ventures.

“Our ask of Mr. Carson is simple: return our confidential information and stop using it to compete with Hayden,” said a Hayden spokesperson in a statement. “We welcome competition. But competition must be fair and cannot be built on stolen property.”

Carson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Hayden AI is currently valued at $350 million after it raised $90 million in July 2024 in a round led by TPG’s The Rise Fund. TPG declined to comment.

Carson started Hayden in 2019 with three cofounders, Bo Shen, Michael Byrne and Vaibhav Ghadiok. He was inspired by a bus ride in San Francisco, where the driver had to repeatedly push a button to report that people were blocking the bus lane. “I thought to myself that we could start to automate that,” Carson told CBS in 2023. The company is now one of the biggest providers of cameras and sensors for buses. Along with its New York City contract, it also sells its tech to Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

Before founding Hayden, Carson, age 56, ran Caruma Technologies, which placed cameras inside vehicles to alert drivers if they started to get sleepy or distracted. His LinkedIn says he graduated from Boca Raton, Florida-based private college Lynn University with a degree in international business in 1997. Then he served in the Marines before getting a Ph.D. from Tokyo’s Waseda University in 2008.

But he may have lied about his background. The complaint alleges that in 2007, Carson was actually operating a paintball business called Splat Action Sports in a Florida strip mall. Forbes confirmed he’s listed as the company’s owner on business records. Waseda University declined to comment, citing privacy.

© Forbes