The Venturian Corporation

The Fry family, consisting of Jordan Fry, Isaac Fry, Cierra Fry and Bethany Fry decided in January of 2013 to start a YouTube channel by the name of VenturianTale.

Early on, the channel mostly followed vlogs and Minecraft gaming videos, involving all of the siblings. By the end of 2013, the channel had garnered around 74,000 subscribers. That wasn’t bad at all for 2013. That actually put them as the 113th most subscribed channel on the platform.

In February of 2014, the siblings would play Garry’s Mod, a free play open world game. This would later dominate the channel. They loved the game and so did their viewers. By the end of 2014, the only videos they were uploading were Garry’s mod videos. Their subscriber count also exploded. They had grown by 900,000 subscribers, the most growth in one year by any YouTuber ever at the time. At 980,000 subscribers, they became the 3rd most subscribed channel on the platform, with VanossGaming at 2nd with 989,000 subscribers and PewDiePie at 1st with 993,000 subscribers.

With the top 3 at such close subscribers counts, the YouTube community dubbed it the “Race to One Million”.

In the end, VenturianTale got second place, gaining one million subscribers on December 29th, 2014, with PewDiePie gaining the number just 3 days earlier.

The fan base of the siblings YouTube channel had grown so much that all the siblings had become the first big YouTube celebrities.

In early-2015 manage merchandise sales and to plan events, the siblings set up The Venturian Corporation, the first YouTube Company. The company was to be headed by the eldest sibling, Jordan.

Jordan Fry had become the face of the channel threw out 2015. He appeared on talk shows and in 2016, was even offered a day-time show on The Disney Channel named “Adventure Tales”, Disney did not want to give roles to his siblings, but eventually caved and gave at least one Co-Host role to his brother, Issac, still leaving out their sisters.

By mid-2016, the channel was slowing, but loyal subscribers still flocked to the channel. The Venturian Corporation had a market value of 220 million when it went public in November of 2016. Almost 30% of the company was now owned by fans. The Fry family kept 51% of the shares, to hold a controlling stake. Around 20% was now owned by large hedge funds. Actually, of that 20%, 2% was owned by Google (YouTube’s parent company). YouTube even changed the logo on the YouTube website for three days to the VenturianTale Channel’s font and put the number 220 next to it, to celebrate the market value of The Venturian Corporation.

By late-2017 though, cracks started to appear in the Fry Family and the channel. Both the sisters, Bethany and Cierra Fry both appeared less and less in videos, and worried fans.

On January 7th, 2018, the VenturianTale channel posted a video named, “Changes to the Adventure”, which had only Jordan Fry in it. He stated in the video that both Bethany and Cierra would appear less in videos because “They have all moved away, and it’s harder to make videos, and sustain our company” he continued, “we had to choose one”. He put that video in the official company records, which went to shareholders.

In March of 2018, both Jordan and Isaac appeared on the March-April issue of TIME Magazine, both Bethany and Cierra declined TIME’s request to appear on the issue.

In April of 2018, Cierra sold all of her shares of the Company to other shareholders. Her shares equalled 46.5 million dollars. Because of Cierra selling her shares, the Fry Family no longer owned a controlling stake. In fact, they owned a minority. A Board of Directors was set up.

In early-2019 YouTube views began to slow down drastically. Many investors in the Corporation became worry of the situation. One day before the Q1 Stock Holders’ Report, Bethany Fry sold all of her shares, amounting to 48 million dollars. After it got out that she had sold all of her shares, almost all hedge funds invested in the company started selling. By the time the Q1 Stock Holders’ Report did come out, the market value of the company dropped from 377 million ($12.59 a share) to 117 million ($5.90 a share). The report did show a bad financial situation, which was made horrible by the crash of the company’s stock price. Though, Jordan and Isaac both sold around 20 million dollars of their shares before the market opened. They did this so they could buy back the shares at a lower price, tripling their share of the company, gaining a controlling share once again.

In July of 2019, the company announced that they would be filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection. The Ohio bankruptcy court accepted the filing and suspended stock trading at $2.93 a share.

How Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection worked is if approved by the court, the State would give a certain amount of money to the company to prevent them from collapsing. In return, the company would downsize, and buy back a certain amount of stock. They would also have to pay back the amount given to them in full by a certain date.

By November, the bankruptcy court was about to approve a 49 million dollar bailout with a 5 year period.

But, on November 17th, one day before the court was going to approve The Venturian Corporation’s request to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Bethany Fry posted a video on her personal channel titled “The truth about VenturianTale”. In the video, she talks about why she left, and what made her leave. She talks about how her family, including her brothers, had been extremely Christian. Very sexist, and homophonic. All driving her and her sister away. She said that Jordan specifically drove her away, one time saying “If you are such a bi*** about it, then just leave, better for us [referring to himself and Isaac]”.

When that came out, it shot to #1 on YouTube trending. The Ohio Bankruptcy court, usually not worried about drama, didn’t care about the video… until they spot something. In Bethany’s video, she said that what drove her away was the religion and what Jordan said to her. But in the 2018 Q1 Stock Holders’ Report, Jordan said that the reason that Bethany left was because of distance. If Jordan did lie in the report, that would be Corporate Fraud, and would bar the State from approving the request. Late on November 17, the court initiated a investigation.

The investigation dragged on for 3 months, with all of the Fry family testifying. Under oath, Jordan emitted that he did say that to Bethany and the real reason why she and Cierra left was because of religious reasons. The investigation closed, with the investigators finding that Jordan Fry knew the reasons why Bethany and Cierra Fry left, and deliberately lied to investors. The judge denied The Venturian Corporation’s request for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.

After the Court denied the request, the hold on the company’s stock price was lifted a day later. The stock plummeted to $0.46 per share. The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading of the stock for the day because it lost over 50% of its value. Bringing the company to a 13.8 million dollar market value. In less then one year, the company lost 96% of it’s value ($363,200,000).

The Cincinnati District Attorney’s Office opened an investigation into Jordan Fry because of him lying to investors and the Bankruptcy Court’s investigation that found that he committed Corporate Fraud, which is a felony.

Their investigation took all of 2 days, mostly because all of the work had mostly been done by the bankruptcy court. On February 26th, 2020, Jordan Fry was arrested at his home and charged with Corporate Fraud of Shareholders, Insider Trading and Intimidation of Major Shareholders.

He was charged with Insider Trading because he sold his stocks because he knew the share price would plummet after Bethany Fry’s video, but he put in the order before the video went public. He was also charged with Intimidation of Major Investors because he “forced” Bethany Fry and possibly Cierra Fry, both considered major investors because they owned over 5% of the company, to sell their stocks.

His trial was nationally televised. Many said it was the “OJ trial of the 21st Century”. All family members and many investors were subpoenaed to testify in the trial. Mid-trial, the DA dropped the “Intimidation of Major Shareholders” charge, because both Bethany and Cierra said that Jordan didn’t intimidate them to sell their shares.

During the trial, Disney cancelled Jordan and Isaac’s show “Adventure Tales”. YouTube also suspended the VenturianTale Channel because of the on-going trial. Isaac was also named by Jordan as temporarily CEO of The Venturian Corporation. At this point, shares have hit $0.12 per share, a 3.6 million dollar market value. Isaac made the decision to file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Liquidation.

How Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Liquidation worked was when the request was approved (which it is always approved) the company would liquidate all assets. This would mean they would sell everything. With that money, they would buy back all shares, and pay off the debt they have. They if they can’t pay all debt or can’t buy back all shares, then the State would cancel all debt and will buy back shares for them respectively.

The Venturian Corporation was able to buy back the 3.6 million dollars worth of shares, and pay off its $700,000 various the payments. On April 9th, 2020, The Venturian Corporation officially closed.

After the 70 day trial, on April 29th, 2020, the Jury had a verdict.

“We the Jury, being the Jury of Law, have come to 2 unanimous verdicts about the charges against Jordan David Fry. On the count of Corporate Fraud, we the Jury find the defendant Not Guilty. On the count of Insider Trading, we the Jury find the defendant Not Guilty.”

Jordan Fry was found Not Guilty on both counts. He was also awarded $10,500 by the state because he was found Not Guilty on all counts ($150 per day detained). YouTube also un-suspended the VenturianTale channel.

Jordan may have not been thrown in jail, but he lost almost everything. Just one year ago, his net worth was 54 million, the richest YouTuber. Most of that was from shares in his company. When the liquidation of the company happened, they bought his shares back for about $495,000. Much less then the $51,933,750 they were worth at the start of 2019. He had his houses and other assets that he sold, and that put his net worth at around 3 million after he sold them.

The VenturianTale Channel was a not like it used to be. Almost no views. And now Jordan was the only one posting anything. He last posted on the Channel on June 12, 2021. TMZ and The Hollywood Fix have been able to get some photos of him. But he has gone dark on all social media. It seems it is the end of this very interesting and sad era.