Ran Neu-Ner confirms he’s taken legal action against Shark Tank’s Gil Oved, Romeo Kumalo [Updated]

UPDATE (21 August 2019): While entrepreneur Ran Neu-Ner has so far refused to provide Ventureburn with the affidavits he’s filed against Gil Oved and Romeo Kumalo, Ventureburn was able to get hold of photographs that testify to how thick the file already is (see below images). 

Entrepreneur Ran Neu-Ner has confirmed that he has taken legal action against his former business partner Gil Oved, together with Oved’s current business partner Romeo Kumalo.

Kumalo, a former Vodacom executive and Oved, a former Shark Tank judge, run LLH Capital, a venture capital (VC) fund, that the two are currently looking to raise $200-million for.

Neu-Ner (pictured above, right with Oved, left) who today runs crypto investor OnChain Capital founded The Creative Council with Oved in 2001. The company was acquired in 2015 by French advertising giant Publicis for a reported R1-billion at the time (see this story and this one).

While the legal dispute was first mentioned in an interview Oved had with CNBC Africa in March, it first emanated last year, Neu-Ner revealed in a call to Ventureburn today.

Ran Neu-Ner has confirmed he’s taken legal action against his former business partner Gil Oved as well as Romeo Kumalo

Said Neu-Ner in an email to Ventureburn on Friday (16 August): “I can confirm that Happy Ntshingila and I have instituted legal proceedings against Gil Oved and Romeo Kumalo. Unfortunately given the sensitivities of the situation I cannot comment further on this matter.”

By way of a registrar at the Gauteng High Court, Ventureburn was able to obtain the below images, that show the size of that indicate the thick stack of court documents that Neu-Ner’s legal team has already filed (see below).

‘Fall out over investment consortium’

Ntshingila is listed online as the chairman of Washirika Holdings, an investment company. He is the former CEO of SuperSport and a former business partner of Kumalo in Washirika Holdings.

Neu-Ner confirmed in a call to Ventureburn today from New York — where he says he’s “temporarily relocated” since the beginning of this year — that the legal action is related to an investment “consortium” that he, Ntshingila, Kumalo and Oved had plans to set up in back in “2017 and 2018”.

It seems therefore that Neu-Ner and Ntshingila had a falling out with Kumalo and Oved. Neu-Ner would not confirm this on the phone today, saying only that he and Ntshingila had lodged three affidavits against Oved and Kumalo since last year.

Earlier this month Oved and Kumalo did not want to reveal how many deals the fund had so far made, despite Oved saying in the March interview that two deals had so far been concluded (see this story).

‘Small dispute’

At the time Oved confirmed to Ventureburn that he was in a financial dispute with Neu-Ner.

“It’s a small dispute over something and we’re sorting it out as we speak, so it’s difficult to discuss outside of the two parties,” he told Ventureburn in a call at the time.

Read more: LLH Capital’s Gil Oved, Romeo Kumalo mum on deals fund has concluded so far
Read more: Romeo Kumalo, Gil Oved to release details on $200m tech fund in Q1 of 2019

Featured image: Former business partners Gil Oved (left) and Ran Neu-Ner (right)