Factory CEO Accuses VC Board Advisor of Leaking Information to Competitor
AI software company Factory's CEO has accused its former board advisor, venture capitalist Chris Degnan, of leaking confidential information to the company's largest competitor, Cognition.
Matan Grinberg, co-founder and CEO of AI software startup Factory, stated on X on Wednesday that he had fired VC Chris Degnan from his role as a board advisor. Grinberg alleges that Degnan shared confidential information with Factory's primary competitor, Cognition.
The accusations surfaced two hours before Degnan announced on both X and LinkedIn that he had joined Cognition as its new chief revenue officer. Degnan previously held a significant role at Snowflake, being the company's first sales hire and later serving as its chief revenue officer for 11 years.
Degnan had spent the last five months as a partner at RPT Partners, an investor in Factory. He also served as a go-to-market advisor to startups for the larger venture firm Iconiq.
Factory, a three-year-old company based in San Francisco, develops agentic AI that can perform programming tasks autonomously. The accusations against Degnan highlight the intense competition within the AI sector and raise questions about potential misuse of proprietary information.