March 1st, 2023
The purpose of this letter is to inform and protect consumers from what in our opinion is fraudulent business practices from Saurabh Bhatia, a citizen of India with an address at 2443 Fillmore St. #380-7980, San Francisco, California 94115, former CEO of Vdopia Inc DBA (rebranded to Chocolate platform) and recently acquired by SilverPush, owned by SilverEdge Technologies Pvt. Ltd
Find more about Saurabh Bhatia and his current business activities here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saurabh-bhatia-54a648b/
Saurabh Bhatia was the CEO of Vdopia Inc DBA (rebranded to Chocolate) when Aeria Canada Studio entered into an agreement with them in January 2018. The agreement was for Chocolate to mediate the Video Ad Supply with Chocolate marketplace as one of the demand partners. Video Ad supply includes but not limited to Video interstitial, Rewarded Video, Native Video or any other Video ad format.
The terms and conditions of such Agreement were that Chocolate will pay Aeria Canada Studio Inc. 99% percentage of Gross Revenue relating to advertisements run on Aeria Canada properties by Chocolate mediation during any given calendar month 1% of the Gross Revenue shall be considered as Chocolate fees. All payments to be made to Aeria Canada Studio Inc. at Net 30 days.
From January 2018 up to August 2019, Chocolate respected the terms of the agreement and paid on time. On December 13th, 2019, Aeria Canada requested clarification as to why the payments stopped since September 2019. The response from Chocolate was that they moved their banking operations and that payments would restart in the coming days. This information was not the truth as Saurabh Bhatia later revealed.
In January 2020 after several attempts from Aeria Canada to get informed about the late payments, their CEO Saurabh Bhatia decided to get on a call with Aeria where he then, and only then explained the real reason for the late payments. Saurabh Bhatia mentioned that they did not have money to pay Aeria Canada. Saurabh Bhatia revealed that the first information given to Aeria Canada regarding the late payments was false, but he added that he was in talks with potential investors and things were looking promising and that Vdopia would restart payments soon.
NOTE: It is important to mention that the money owed to Aeria Canada was generated via advertisement inside Aeria Canada properties, meaning that the owner of such revenue was at all times Aeria Canada. Chocolate was only doing the mediation of the advertisement for Aeria Canada. Therefore the properties were generating revenue and such revenue was paid from the advertising networks to Chocolate, but Chocolate did not pay back the money to Aeria Canada.
After Saurabh Bhatia explained an alleged reason as to why Vdopia did not have money to pay Aeria Canada. Aeria Canada changed meditation services for most of their properties so that the money that continued to generate was ensured to be received by Aeria Canada. However, as good faith and proof of trust in Vdopia, Aeria Canada kept some of the properties on Chocolate mediation, since Saurabh Bhatia promised that things would go back to normal in a short time.
Aeria Canada followed up regularly with Saurabh Bhatia directly and in February 2020, Vdopia issued some small amount payments in March and April 2022.
On July 9th 2020, Saurabh Bhatia entered into a Settlement Agreement between Aeria Canada, VDopia (dba Chocolate platform), and Saurabh Bhatia as a personal Guarantor. Where all parties agreed to settle the remaining amount. Some small monthly payments were initiated between August and November but then stopped without any notice. The remaining amount still owed to Aeria Canada is a considerable amount.
In December 2020, Vdopia stopped paying the monthly installments. When Aeria Canada requested information on this, Saurabh Bhatia mentioned once again that payments should re-start soon. This never happened.
In 2021, Aeria Canada regularly followed up with Saurabh Bhatia where his response was always “the payments will restart soon”. Aeria Canada attempted to reach Saurabh Bhatia through phone calls, messages and emails without response from him. Saurabh Bhatia stopped all communication with Aeria Canada in September 2021. Saurabh Bhatia breached the contract, therefore Aeria Canada is not obligated to comply with the rest of the agreement including the Confidentiality clause or release of information against him. Saurabh Bhatia did not fulfill his contract to pay as a personal Guarantor.
Aeria Canada recently communicated with a member of SilverPush that is also in charge of the Chocolate platform. We were made aware that the Chocolate platform is still operating and doing well as an open bidder. However Aeria Canada has not been paid or been communicated about any possible payment solution.
Aeria Canada will be reporting Saurabh Bhatia to the FBI and FTC for the reasons mentioned above.
Aeria Canada is releasing this letter to the public with the purpose of informing and preventing others about the probable fraudulent and bad business practices of Saurabh Bhatia. Aeria Canada does not blame nor condone other directors of Vdopia (dba Chocolate) for Saurabh Bhatia actions. Aeria Canada wishes to inform with the hope that this doesn’t happen to other people and that this type of practices can take advantage of anyone else in the future.
To all developers and gaming studios looking to enter a partnership with managed mediations and open bidders, please do your research and due-diligence to make sure you are dealing with a legitimate and trustable individual or company.
If you would like more information about this subject, contact Aeria Canada at contact@aeriacanada.com