Previous episodes: Day 58: How the Pump Started — Part 1 of 4 · Day 57: The Paywall Question · Day 56: The Board Folder · Day 55: Friday Q&A
Background reading: The Myth of Danish Purity (31 January 2026) · Shape Robotics Bankruptcy Annulled — Carnegie, Lars Topholm (7 March 2026)
Fifty-nine days into a war I didn’t start. Three days until the court hearing on 11 May at 09:30 at Sø- og Handelsretten.
I owe you an apology. I missed two daily livestreams. I needed the weekend to recuperate. Today I came back, opened the stream, said hello to Bo and Louise, and then walked through the part of the pump-and-dump story that I want to tell publicly — the part that explains why it happened.
Yesterday in Part 1 I showed you the mechanics: the 5 March 2024 “back of the envelope” by Lars Topholm of Carnegie, the +48.6% pump in 7 trading days, the verified DKK 52.00 all-time high on 18 March 2024, the coordinated sales of approximately 532,000 shares between 24 April and 4 June 2024. I gave you the public arithmetic.
Today I want to do something different. I am going to walk you through what is verifiable in the public record about the architecture of this scheme, what remains contested testimony, and where I have to draw the line between the two.
This is the discipline the case requires now. Not less force — more precision.
🎯 Three names you need to remember
✓ Michael Voss (full registered name: Michael Voss-Jensen). Founder and director of Fundamental Fondsmæglerselskab A/S since 1992 — one of Denmark’s most respected independent stock-picking boutiques. Citywire AAA-rated. Approximately DKK 2.3–2.5 billion in AUM. Soft-closed to new investors several years ago because Fundamental’s growing size made it harder to take meaningful positions in small-cap names. Fundamental Invest was Shape Robotics’ largest institutional shareholder from late 2022 onward — combined Voss + foundation holdings exceeded 20% of the company at one point. Sources: fundamental.dk · Cision Announcement, 22 November 2022 · Citywire profile.
✓ Lars Topholm — Managing Director and Head of Research at DNB Carnegie Investment Bank. Joined Carnegie in May 2004 as analyst, became Head of Research in May 2012. Career path before Carnegie: Alfred Berg / ABN Amro 1993–1999, BI Venture / BankInvest 1999–2001, Nordea 2002–2004. Concurrently: Chairman of Aerbio (formerly Deep Branch Biotechnology), registered 15 August 2024 per the Danish business registry. Sources: LinkedIn · Lasso CVR record.
✓ Martin Bundgaard — Long-time Danish stockbroker and financial journalist (Penge & Privatøkonomi, Børsens Nyhedsmagasin, Økonomisk Ugebrev). Director of NOVA FINANCE ApS 1978–1993. Director and 100% owner of Sundvænget Invest ApS since 1999. 33.08% beneficial owner of Aerbio Group A/S via Sundvænget Invest, per the Danish business registry. Director of Aerbio Group from 1 May 2024 until 15 August 2024 — when Topholm replaced him in the chair. Sources: ownr.dk public profile · Paqle profile.
There is a fourth player — Søren Bendixen, a private investor in Shape Robotics and in Aerbio (via Fredericiagade Holding ApS). To avoid confusion: this is not the Søren Bendixen who works as DR’s Africa correspondent. Different person, same name.
📊 What the verified record actually says about the architecture
I want to lay out the dates that are confirmed by primary sources — Cision filings, Danish business registry (CVR / Lasso / ownr.dk), Aerbio’s own press materials, regulatory decisions. No speculation. Pure chronology.
✓ November 2022: Voss / Fundamental Invest publicly announces a DKK 26 million+ investment in Shape Robotics. Combined private + foundation holdings approach and exceed 20% of the company in subsequent placements. Source: Cision, 22 November 2022.
✓ December 2022: Lars Topholm purchases 3,500 Shape Robotics shares personally. He does not disclose this shareholding when he later distributes investment commentary on the company. Source: Cision Announcement 10-26, 7 April 2026.
✓ 5 March 2024: Topholm circulates the “back of the envelope” note inside and outside Carnegie. The note projects three-to-four-times upside on Shape Robotics based on the company’s own published financial targets.
✓ 11 March 2024: Shape Robotics announces a directed share placement at DKK 35.00 per share, raising DKK 35.4 million. The placement is oversubscribed. Topholm, Bundgaard, Bendixen, and Sundvænget Invest are among the participating investors.
✓ 18 March 2024: Shape Robotics reaches DKK 52.00 — its all-time high. Seven trading days after the placement. +48.6% from the placement price. TradingView OMXCOP:SHAPE confirms.
✓ 24 April – 4 June 2024: The same network — Topholm personally, Bundgaard, Bendixen, Sundvænget Invest — coordinately sells approximately 532,000 shares at DKK 42–45 per share. Approximately DKK 21 million extracted in cumulative profits. The detailed transaction analysis is in The Myth of Danish Purity.
✓ 1 May 2024: “DBB BidCo ApS” is incorporated — Bundgaard’s vehicle, with Kaspar Kristiansen and the Deep Branch Biotechnology core team. The vehicle executes a management buyout of Deep Branch Biotechnology Ltd (UK). Sources: ownr.dk, Lasso CVR records.
✓ August 2024: DBB BidCo is rebranded as Aerbio. Public launch announced 28 August 2024. Pilot facility goes live at Brightlands Chemelot Campus (NL). Source: Food Navigator, 28 August 2024.
✓ 15 August 2024: Lars Topholm formally registered as Chairman of Aerbio Group ApS in the Danish business registry. Bundgaard ceases as director the same day. Source: Lasso CVR record.
✓ September 2024: Aerbio Series A overview deck dated 25 September 2024 targets EUR 50 million by Q4 2024.
✓ 2024–2025: Aerbio raises an oversubscribed multi-million-euro bridge loan, with Chr. Olesen Group (Mads C. Olesen) joining as a new investor. Topholm and Olesen quoted in Aerbio’s own press release. Source: aer.bio/press-release.
✓ October 2025: Aerbio resumes the EUR 50 million Series A round formally. Source: Mainsights, 7 October 2025.
✓ 24 December 2025: Voss / Fundamental Fondsmæglerselskab discloses joint reduction of holdings in Shape Robotics to below 5%. Note the date — twenty months after the Topholm/Bundgaard/Bendixen network exited at peak prices. Voss did not exit at peak. Voss exited late, after the Finans.dk press campaign and after Shape’s price collapse was already substantially complete. Source: TradeDesk / Cision flagging notice.
✓ 7 April 2026: Finanstilsynet issues a formal reprimand against Lars Topholm for breach of MAR Article 20(1) — for distributing an investment recommendation while holding shares without disclosing the shareholding. Source: Cision Announcement 10-26.
That is the verified chronology. Each line above has a primary source. No allegations. No inference. Pure record.
🏢 The architectural overlap — Aerbio, capitalized in the same window
Here is what jumps out when you align those dates side by side.
SHAPE ROBOTICS AERBIO Mar 5 2024 Topholm "back of envelope" Mar 11 2024 Shape placement @ DKK 35 (Topholm, Bundgaard, Bendixen, Sundvænget participate) Mar 18 2024 Shape ATH DKK 52.00 Apr 24 2024 Coordinated sales begin May 1 2024 ← DBB BidCo incorporated Coordinated sales continue (Bundgaard's vehicle) ~DKK 21M extracted Jun 4 2024 Coordinated sales end Aug 15 2024 ← Topholm registered as Aerbio Chairman Aug 28 2024 ← Aerbio launches publicly Sep 25 2024 ← Aerbio Series A deck targets EUR 50M 2024-25 ← Aerbio bridge raised (oversubscribed; Chr. Olesen) Oct 7 2025 ← Aerbio EUR 50M Series A formally resumes
This is the structural overlap. Investors who participated in the Shape Robotics directed placement at DKK 35 in March 2024 — and who exited the position at DKK 42–45 between April and June 2024 — were the same investors capitalising the Deep Branch / Aerbio buyout in the same window.
The Shape Robotics share liquidity, in other words, did not just transfer wealth from retail buyers to private investors. It did so in the precise window when those private investors were funding a private biotech buyout where the same Carnegie analyst would shortly become Chairman.
That overlap is not personal interpretation. The dates are in the Danish business registry. The shareholding records are in Aerbio’s own filings. The architecture is publicly auditable.
📑 The Finanstilsynet finding — 7 April 2026
Everything I describe above is structural. The regulatory anchor is specific.
On 7 April 2026, Cision Announcement 10-26 confirmed that Finanstilsynet had issued a formal reprimand against Lars Topholm for breach of MAR Article 20(1).
The Authority’s published findings are direct:
✓ Lars Topholm prepared and distributed an investment recommendation in March 2024 ✓ The recommendation contained calculations of theoretical price upside (”three-four times higher”) ✓ At the time, Topholm personally held 3,500 Shape Robotics shares, purchased in December 2022 ✓ Topholm did not disclose his shareholding when distributing the recommendation ✓ The “back of the envelope” framing is legally irrelevant ✓ The absence of a measurable price effect is legally irrelevant
The format he used to claim it was “informal” does not save the recommendation from being subject to MAR Article 20. The bank that employed him was Carnegie. The publicly listed company on which he was opining was Shape Robotics.
The Company has filed a D&O claim with Topdanmark and is initiating recovery proceedings against Carnegie Investment Bank and Topholm following the EGM on 14 April 2026. The path from the regulatory finding to the recovery action is structurally complete.
The 7 April 2026 reprimand is the foundation on which everything else in this story is now built. The pump was not a theory. The undisclosed shareholding was not a theory. They are now regulatory facts on the public record.
⚖️ Voss is not part of the network — and this matters
Some readers have asked me directly: “Was Michael Voss part of the pump-and-dump network?”
The answer requires precision. Voss was Shape Robotics’ largest institutional shareholder. He invested through Fundamental from late 2022. He participated in subsequent placements as a long-only conviction position. He did not exit at peak in April–June 2024 with the Topholm/Bundgaard/Bendixen network. He did not exit at all until 24 December 2025 — twenty months later, when Fundamental flagged below 5% after the Finans.dk press campaign and the price collapse were already substantially complete.
Voss was, on the chronology, more plausibly a victim of the pump-and-dump than a beneficiary — someone whose long-only position was depleted by a market manipulation he had no part in. The Finanstilsynet reprimand of 7 April 2026 names Topholm. It does not name Voss. The 532,000-share coordinated exit window — April to June 2024 — does not include him.
If at some point I have suggested otherwise on a livestream — and there are passages in the unedited transcripts where I have speculated about personal histories I cannot verify from the public record — I want to be careful about what I say in the published, structured record. The verified record places Voss outside the perimeter of the regulatory finding. That distinction matters, both for accuracy and for what the recovery action looks like from here.
🤝 Where I cannot go further — the limits of what I can say
I want to draw a line here that I think the case requires now.
There are personal histories among these men — long-running professional relationships in a small Danish finance market where many of the senior figures have known each other for decades — that I have heard about over the past two years from various participants. I cannot publicly verify those relationships from open sources, and I will not turn private testimony into published claims of fact in this dispatch.
What I can say from the public record:
✓ The MAR Article 20(1) violation by Topholm is a regulatory fact as of 7 April 2026 ✓ The Aerbio capital raise overlapped with the Shape pump-and-dump window — structural fact documented in CVR, Aerbio’s own filings, and food-industry trade press ✓ Bundgaard’s 33.08% beneficial ownership of Aerbio Group via Sundvænget Invest is registry fact ✓ Topholm’s August 2024 chairmanship of Aerbio is registry fact
What I cannot say from the public record alone — and therefore will not say here as established fact:
✕ That any specific personal grievance motivated the scheme between specific individuals ✕ That Voss was the “designated victim” — chronologically he was hurt by it, but motive cannot be inferred from harm alone ✕ That any specific past employment relationship existed between Voss and the Topholm/Bundgaard/Bendixen network beyond the publicly documented Danish finance market
I will leave those points where they belong — in the regulatory and civil proceedings that will examine evidence under proper standards, not in a Substack dispatch from a private citizen.
That is not weakness. That is what discipline looks like at Day 59.
🎯 Why retail investors are systemically defenseless
When a directed placement is done at DKK 35 in March 2024, and the share price reaches DKK 52 within seven trading days, retail investors see only the price action. They see the rally and they assume something has fundamentally changed about the company. They buy into the rally. They become the exit liquidity for the placement participants.
The information asymmetry is total. The mechanism is invisible. The consequence is direct.
🎯 This is why disclosure laws exist. MAR Article 20 exists precisely because financial professionals have access to information and analytical tools that retail investors don’t have. When those professionals fail to disclose their own positions while distributing investment recommendations, the entire information architecture of the public markets collapses for retail.
The 7 April 2026 reprimand is Finanstilsynet saying: yes, that collapse happened, and yes, this is the actor responsible.
That is what happened to Shape Robotics. And to approximately 4,700 retail shareholders in 17 countries. And to Michael Voss / Fundamental Invest, whose long-only conviction position was depleted by the same scheme that was extracting from retail.
📈 What’s coming in Parts 3 and 4
Part 3 — tomorrow: The Cover-up. How Finans.dk responded to my Substack investigation. The leaked sealed Romanian documents, the character-assassination playbook, the auditor resignation timed to the same day as the Finans.dk fraud article on 18 December 2025. The “Pandora pump-and-dump 2018” precedent involving the same analyst at Carnegie.
Part 4 — day after: The Connection. How the pump-and-dump of March-April 2024 directly caused the bankruptcy of January 2026. The DKK 205 million in shareholder value destroyed. The 97% drawdown from peak. The death spiral that follows when the share currency of a small-cap is destroyed. Why EIFO withdrew. Why Treyd filed bankruptcy. Why everything that has happened since 6 January 2026 traces back to the email of 5 March 2024.
After Part 4, on 11 May, we go to court. Mazanti-Andersen is proposed as reconstructor. The reconstruction begins. The post-bankruptcy prospectus follows. The recovery action against Carnegie and Topholm proceeds.
This is no longer about whether something happened. The regulator has confirmed it. This is about how recovery is structured. That is what 11 May is about.
🔚 Closing — apologies and acknowledgements
I want to close on three apologies.
To Michael Voss — and to Fundamental’s investors: I have on occasion conflated the timeline of your exit with the network that the Finanstilsynet reprimand actually concerns. The verified record is clear: Voss / Fundamental was Shape Robotics’ largest institutional shareholder for three years and held the position through the pump, the dump, and most of the subsequent collapse. The 24 December 2025 flagging notice is two paragraphs in a Cision archive, but it is a structurally important fact. Voss did not exit with the network. He was hurt by the network. I should have been clearer about this earlier.
To my retail shareholders: I should have escalated harder in 2024. I deferred to a board process that was reluctant to confront a Carnegie analyst publicly. The disclosure was delayed by a full year. That delay cost you. I am sorry.
To Jeppe Frantzen: Reasonable people can disagree about whether a small-cap board should have escalated in 2024 versus 2025. I disagreed with you then. Looking back, the cost-benefit of public escalation is harder to assess than I made it sound at the time. The board members who came under collateral pressure in 2025 were real people with real careers. I can hold both: that you were probably wrong about the timing, and that the decision was harder than my retrospective certainty suggests.
The reconstruction on 11 May is the procedural step that allows everything else to follow. The recovery action against Carnegie and Topholm proceeds. The schools’ subscriptions are honoured. The platform is preserved.
11 May. 09:30. Sø- og Handelsretten. Independent reconstructor. Q.E.D.
Mark-Robert Abraham · Founder and former CEO, Shape Robotics A/S · 8 May 2026 · Day 59
Lead complainant on the shareholders’ petition: Jørgen Andreas Berg · joergen.andreas.berg@gmail.com
🔐 Vault access: wildceo.live/vault — subscribe at substack.wildceo.live and use the same email to log in.
📄 Public record: Cision Announcement 10-26 — Finanstilsynet Reprimand against Lars Topholm (7 April 2026)
📄 Aerbio Group beneficial-ownership records: Lasso CVR record on Topholm chairmanship · ownr.dk profile on Bundgaard
📄 Fundamental Invest (Voss): About page on fundamental.dk · Citywire AAA-rated showcase
📊 Day 58 Datawrapper Chart 1 — The Pump (Feb-Apr 2024) · Day 58 Datawrapper Chart 2 — The Pump & Dump Full Trajectory
📚 Part 3 of this series — “The Cover-up” — drops tomorrow, Friday 9 May 2026.
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