A venture capital firm backed by Denver taxpayers, which endured a public breakup with the city last year, has missed a deadline to submit an audited financial statement to the city.

What was submitted instead, according to a prominent local investor, is “laughable.”

“You would expect more from an eighth grade intern than what this fund provided,” said Justin Borus, who founded Denver-based Ibex Investors in 2003 and manages around $1 billion in investments. “If an eighth grade intern did that work, they’d be fired.”

DEMI Fund, a VC firm founded by Danielle Shoots in 2022, was tapped by Denver that year to use a portion of the city’s marijuana sales tax revenue to support local startups owned by women and minorities, sometimes through grants but other times through direct investments. T

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