Pandemic Darlings The pandemic economy, in original documents
Home Profiles Noah Spirakus

Profiles · Principals

ProfilePerson

Noah Spirakus

Executive

PPP
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
PPP
Updated

The profile

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Blueacorn. The House Select Subcommittee's report says a Blueacorn operating agreement gave him a 50 percent interest; the report's citation for the agreement reads "(online at XXX)." He has not been charged with any crime.

In the archive

Identity and role

Noah Spirakus co-founded Blueacorn in 2020 and served as its Chief Technology Officer. The House Select Subcommittee describes him as the "technology entrepreneur Noah Spirakus (Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer)." He is based in the Phoenix area (Gilbert, Arizona) with ties to the Denver metro.

Biography / career arc

By his own and aggregators' accounts, Spirakus was co-founder and CTO of Bold Financial Technologies, which was acquired by Airbnb; co-founder and CEO of Prospectify, a sales-data startup acquired by AngelList; and held an engineering leadership role at AngelList after that acquisition. His LinkedIn page also lists a Techstars mentor role from 2017 to 2021, venture roles at J2 Capital and Everywhere Ventures starting in 2021, and newer founder roles at Givespark and Tropiq.

The company and its PPP/EIDL role

Blueacorn was a lender service provider, not a lender, that packaged PPP applications and routed them to partner CDFIs (Prestamos in Phoenix and Capital Plus Financial in Bedford, Texas) for a share of the SBA's processing fees. It reviewed roughly 1.7 million applications, forwarded the 739,282 it told the Subcommittee it had approved and sent to lenders for funding in 2021. Blueacorn collected about $1.08 billion in fees.

Spirakus's LinkedIn page describes the pandemic company under the label "Covid Fintech," and says the company partnered with CDFIs to automate loan processing, processed about 5 million applications in 90 days, served roughly 800,000 businesses, and reached nearly 1,000 employees at peak. Those figures are self-reported.

According to the Select Subcommittee's report, a Blueacorn operating agreement it obtained showed Spirakus owning a 50 percent interest in Blueacorn, with Reis and Hockridge jointly holding the other 50 percent. The report states that the stake "could have entitled Mr. Spirakus to $129 million," while Reis and Hockridge would have shared the other half. Blueacorn declined to give the Subcommittee profit information broken out by individual owner, so the report frames the $129 million as a potential entitlement implied by the ownership split, not a verified distribution. What Spirakus actually received is not publicly documented.

On June 28, 2021 Reis and Hockridge filed a verified complaint and an application for an order to show cause against Spirakus in Maricopa County Superior Court. Spirakus filed a response opposing the application on July 16; on July 23 Reis and Hockridge filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice, and the court dismissed the case on July 27, 2021. The register does not state the claims (Reis and Hockridge v. Spirakus, No. CV2021-010252, register of actions). The operating agreement the report cites is dated May 26, 2021 (report, n. 199).

In Blueacorn's Delaware suit against PayNerd, PayNerd's third-party complaint of December 21, 2022 accused Spirakus, then Fin Cap's chief technology officer, with Fin Cap and Reis, of fraudulently inducing its first referral agreement. On August 16, 2023 the court let that claim go forward, denying the motions to dismiss it. It is an allegation, not a finding (Fin Cap Inc. v. PayNerd LLC, Del. Super. C.A. No. N21C-12-118 MMJ CCLD, opinion, Aug. 16, 2023).

As CTO he was part of the company's operating leadership during the 2021 surge. Internal emails cited by the Subcommittee show Elev8's Adam Spencer writing to "Barry Calhoun, Matt Yahes, and Noah Spirakus" in April 2021 on eligibility-verification matters, and other emails place Spirakus, alongside COO Matt Yahes, in correspondence with Business Warrior (the supplemental verification vendor).

Their own relief

No PPP or EIDL loan to Spirakus personally is established in the public record.

Spirakus has not been charged with any crime. The criminal cases out of the Northern District of Texas named Reis, Hockridge, and James Flores among the founders (plus Qualytics associates Michael Cota and Vivian Arriaga). Spirakus was not a defendant in any of them, and no public indictment, plea, settlement, or civil fraud judgment names him as of mid-2026.

The House report names him as a 50 percent owner and CTO; it is an oversight document, not a finding of liability.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

LinkedIn lists him as founder of Tropiq, an aviation EFB/safety product in early access, since January 2026; founder of Givespark since 2025; managing partner of J2 Capital since 2021; partner at Everywhere Ventures since 2021; and co-president of the Artemis Foundation since 2021. He is not a party to the Blueacorn prosecutions or the related asset-recovery actions.

Documents on this site

Original source documents and archived copies

  • Nathan "Nate" Reis — founded Blueacorn with Stephanie Hockridge and Spirakus; an operating agreement showed Spirakus holding 50 percent.

Sources

Back to top