SEC accuses Long Island firm of inflating fees on pre-IPO tech fund sales

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Andrew Spaventa and three entities he controls—The Spaventa Group, TSG Capital Advisors and TSG Alpha Partners—with fraud for operating a boiler-room that sold pre-IPO shares in elite tech firms. Over a four-and-a-half-year period, more than 800 investors, many contributing $100,000 or less, were persuaded by a scripted cold-call operation to buy stakes in companies like SpaceX, Anduril, Anthropic and Perplexity AI.

The SEC alleges the funds bought the shares at lower prices and then resold them to investors at markups averaging 46%, sometimes as high as 91%, creating $23 million in undisclosed fees. Of that, over $12 million paid sales commissions and at least $4 million funded Spaventa’s personal purchases. The complaint also notes that many agents were unregistered or previously barred, and that investors never received required consent or board oversight. The agency is pursuing monetary penalties and a permanent bar from the securities industry.