Finance influencer dies by suicide in Chennai; father accuses tech CEO, who denies charge

A finance influencer with over 1.3 million followers on Instagram died by suicide in Chennai and his father has alleged that he was being cyberbullied by the CEO of a venture studio.

V Harish, 27, who ran the popular social media accounts ‘Finance With Harish’ on Instagram and YouTube, was found hanging at his rented villa in Chennai. His father claims he was “targeted” by Jason Samuel, the CEO of venture studio Zemuria Inc.

Harish’s Instagram handle was disabled by Meta following Samuel’s allegations, and he had been releasing videos on a new handle.

The influencer was stressed because of this, which drove him to take his own life, said his father, who has also demanded a police investigation.

Samuel responded to the accusations and said in a post on X on Tuesday evening that he was shocked by Harish’s death but emphasised that he had only pointed out that the influencer had “misrepresented” facts.

Samuel claimed that Harish was not an SEBI Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) and had got his AMFI Registration Number (ARN) from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) only recently.

Samuel says he raised a regulatory concern about someone giving financial advice to a very large audience.

“I am deeply saddened, heavily grieving, shocked and frozen at what has happened, and I mourn the loss of life. I have not cyber-bullied him. I pointed out his lack of licence and authority, misrepresentation of licence and fraud on SEBI and AMFI, where he has not got SEBI RIA for his work and misrepresented that he had an AMFI licence when he got the ARN only recently,” Samuel wrote.

“I literally asked him in the video to come back and do this with a proper SEBI licence. I never intended or expected this drastic measure to happen, and I mourn the loss,” he added.

The police are yet to register a case in connection with the death.