Here's an inventive business model: When you're not actually making money, try making it up. The former CEO and CFO of Entellium, a software startup in Seattle, have been charged with wire fraud after an employee found the company keeping a cooked set of books for its investors. Paul Johnston, the CEO, and Parrish Jones, the CFO, resigned abruptly last month. 40 of the company's 60 employees in Seattle were laid off, having been told that the "money ran out." Or ran away: Authorities are trying to find where the company's $50 million in venture capital went.Entellium, an online customer-relationship management software company which competed — not very well, it turns out — with the likes of Salesforce.com and NetSuite, had raised that $50 million from venture capitalists, including Ignition Partners, a high-profile firm founded in part by former Microsoft executives. Ignition had invested $2 million as recently as April. The company told investors it had taken in $15.5 million since 2006. The real number: $3.8 million. Johnston, in his resignation email, said that he had started overstating revenues almost as soon as the company was founded in 2004. Barry Abraham, a former executive and shareholder, wonders why investors never conducted an audit. His explosive charge: Abraham claims the board knew of the fraud, but hoped Entellium's real business would become someone else's problem before it was discovered. In fact, Entellium floated talk of a sale to Avidian, another Seattle-area software company, shortly before the charges were unveiled. In the complaint filed by prosecutors, Ignition's board members say they never would have invested had they known the real state of Entellium's finances. Would anyone be surprised to hear that the rest of Ignition's portfolio companies now have audits scheduled?