Carahsoft<\/a> sold to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.<\/p>\nVentech 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.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0Anjaneyulu, his sibling who lives in the San Antonio suburb of Shavano Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Kunduru and Anjaneyulu did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The two men began speculating on stocks, Carahsoft said. The account\u2019s value initially rose to more than $17 million before dropping precipitously.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t clear from the complaint if money was removed or lost through risky stock positions. It also isn\u2019t clear how Carahsoft knows Kunduru opened the Charles Schwab brokerage account, that it was independent of the company or the account\u2019s value.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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No exhibits listing money transfers were included in the filings and the company\u2019s attorneys declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The suit, though, said\u00a0Kunduru confirmed that Ventech has a \u201cpolicy\u201d of putting early payments into short-term investments until invoices are due.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[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,\u201d it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019 fees.<\/p>\n
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Ventech did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
What is Carahsoft?<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It makes billions acting as the middleman for government software and IT services by holding master software agreements with providers like Amazon Web Services,\u00a0VMware, and others. It works because the government doesn\u2019t want to negotiate multiple times for the same software packages across multiple agencies. Provider companies say they don\u2019t want the increased regulatory scrutiny of doing business directly with the federal government.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s where Carahsoft comes in.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFederal Acquisition Service contracting personnel frequently accepted commercial pricing information from offerors that was unsupported, outdated, or that identified no comparable commercial sales,\u201d said a 2022 inspector general audit.<\/a><\/p>\nCarahsoft 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.<\/p>\n
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The company\u2019s 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\u00a0Carahsoft 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The company continues to receive federal dollars and contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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