File: The complaint filed in July in a federal court in Austin alleges that Ventech made $13 million in options trades rather than pay its invoices.
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One of the biggest private companies in the nation says it was stiffed for $13 million when a Round Rock cybersecurity firm took money from the U.S. government then used it to play the stock market instead of paying its bills.
It lost all but $20,000, according to a new federal lawsuit.
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The episode and fraud allegations underscore concerns about government procurement and how some companies allegedly use funds for non-official uses.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Austin, information technology company Carahsoft said that Ventech Solutions purchased, on credit, software that Carahsoft sold to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Ventech Solutions has done business with the federal agency since at least 2015, when it received a contract potentially worth $793 million to operate and maintain its data collection systems.
In its suit, Carahsoft alleged Ventech was paid last March. But instead of handing over what it owed Carahsoft, Ventech CEO Ravi Kunduru, also of Round Rock, opened a joint brokerage account with Logan Anjaneyulu, his sibling who lives in the San Antonio suburb of Shavano Park.
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Kunduru and Anjaneyulu did not respond to requests for comment.
The complaint says $13.4 million in funds were redirected to the brokerage account from Ventech and alleges Kunduru misrepresented that it was a company account.
The two men began speculating on stocks, Carahsoft said. The account’s value initially rose to more than $17 million before dropping precipitously.
It isn’t clear from the complaint if money was removed or lost through risky stock positions. It also isn’t clear how Carahsoft knows Kunduru opened the Charles Schwab brokerage account, that it was independent of the company or the account’s value.
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No exhibits listing money transfers were included in the filings and the company’s attorneys declined to comment.
The suit, though, said Kunduru confirmed that Ventech has a “policy” of putting early payments into short-term investments until invoices are due.
“[Kunduru] further stated that with the stock market falling significantly, Ventech lost the value of the funds and could not pay the $13,711,103.53 due and owing to Carahsoft at that time,” it said.
Carahsoft did not list Ventech as a defendant, instead suing Kunduru and Anjaneyulu individually for fraudulent transfer and conversion. It is seeking payment of more than $13 million and attorneys’ fees.
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Ventech did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
What is Carahsoft?
Carahsoft was founded in 2004 and has grown rapidly over the the past decade. It is the 20th-largest privately owned company in the nation, according to Forbes. The company says it has 4,000 employees and more than $20 billion in revenue.
It makes billions acting as the middleman for government software and IT services by holding master software agreements with providers like Amazon Web Services, VMware, and others. It works because the government doesn’t want to negotiate multiple times for the same software packages across multiple agencies. Provider companies say they don’t want the increased regulatory scrutiny of doing business directly with the federal government.
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That’s where Carahsoft comes in.
Such arrangements are widespread in government procurement and have been criticized by government watchdog groups. They say they lead to opaque pricing structures that have been exploited with inflated prices.
“Federal Acquisition Service contracting personnel frequently accepted commercial pricing information from offerors that was unsupported, outdated, or that identified no comparable commercial sales,” said a 2022 inspector general audit.
Carahsoft itself has been accused on multiple occasions of malfeasance. In 2015, it was investigated for False Claims Act violations for allegedly inflating prices of VMware software. It admitted no wrongdoing but settled with the Department of Justice. VMware and Carahsoft paid $75 million.
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The company’s Virginia office was raided in 2024 by the FBI and computers and files were seized. It was unclear what the raid was linked to. That year Carahsoft and German software company SAP were under investigation for allegedly conspiring to inflate prices on government contracts. The government had sued the company the previous year to provide documents in a civil investigation.
Carahsoft was also under investigation by the SEC last year over a $32 million purchase of CrowdStrike software for the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS said it never made such a purchase.
The company continues to receive federal dollars and contracts.
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