Hardened to accusations of biting the hand that feeds him, Adeo Ressi, serial entrepreneur and founder of whistleblowing website thefunded.com, says the venture capital industry is rife with unethical practices that have long gone unreported.

In his own words, Mr Ressi is hardly new to the game. In 1994 he founded Total New York, Inc, a web media business that was later sold to AOL and Tribune Media, before moving onto a role as chief strategy officer at Xceed, an internet architecture and design firm.