Jump sues its former Firedancer engineer for starting rival business and 'secretly' raising funds

Jump Trading filed a lawsuit against Liam Heeger, its former software engineer, for allegedly violating non-competition obligations by now running a “competitive business.”

The company claimed that Heeger — who co-led the major blockchain project Firedancer at Jump — breached his non-competition agreement after he resigned from the company on Nov. 11, according to the lawsuit filed by Jump Operations on Tuesday. Heeger launched a new blockchain development venture that “directly competes with Jump,” according to the filing. 

Jump argued that Heeger had already secured $3 million in funding at a $50 million valuation within one month of his resignation, which constitutes a direct violation of his contractual non-compete obligations. 

Jump’s lawsuit against Heeger comes on the heels of the launch of Unto Labs, co-founded by Heeger, which aims to build a new Layer 1 blockchain.

In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Unto Labs told The Block that Heeger and Unto Labs “strongly deny these allegations” and are “confident in the integrity of our business practices.”

“While we respect the legal process, we believe the claims made against Liam are without merit,” the spokesperson said. “We are confident that we are building something entirely new and are excited to see where this project goes next.” 

Unto noted that its operations are continuing as usual.

'Secret' fundraising allegations

In the filing, Jump also alleged that Heeger misappropriated the company's confidential and proprietary information to launch a competitor while still employed by Jump. For example, Heeger allegedly met with venture capital firms to raise funds for his new venture in September at the Breakpoint conference in Singapore, where he also represented Jump by presenting updates on Project Firedancer on stage.

The filing claimed Heeger’s “apparent secret meetings” with venture capital firms at Breakpoint and several other factors showed that Heeger allegedly performed work for his competing venture “long before he resigned from Jump.” 

It also claimed that Heeger revealed that his investors for the new venture include Framework Ventures and its sister company, Framework Labs, when he had a conversation with a former colleague at Jump in December after he left the company.

The document alleged that in December, Heeger told his former supervisor at Jump that he had intended to comply with his non-competition agreement when he signed it, but that “he had since traveled to California and that California has a different law than Illinois that says that he was no longer required to comply with his non-compete obligations.”