Tiger Global’s $12.7B Venture Fund Down 20% — Report

Tiger Global seems to be losing its bite.

The crossover investment giant’s $12.7 billion fund — which was launched near the end of 2021 — had a paper loss of 20%, net of management fees, as of December, according to a report in The Information.

The news comes just about a month after The Wall Street Journal reported Tiger Global had marked down the value of its investments across its venture capital funds by about 33%.

Some notable writedowns from the firms’ Private Investment Partners XV include its entire $38 million investment in the now bankrupt FTX and FTX.US, as well other crypto and Web3 investments such as MoonPay, decentralized wireless network company Helium, and NFT startup Bored Ape Yacht Club, per the report.

One of the largest hits Tiger took was in its investment in NFT marketplace OpenSea. The firm invested $126.8 million in the startup in November 2021 and January 2022. However, at the end of last year, Tiger had marked that investment down to $30.2 million — a 76% drop, according to the report.

Tiger also has faced a significant writedown on its largest holding, ByteDance. Through its recent fund, Tiger invested $144.6 million in the China-based company in mid-2021 in secondary transactions. By September of last year, Tiger valued those investments at $100.8 million, per the report. Overall, Tiger has invested more than $2 billion in ByteDance at various times and valuations.

According to the report, about a quarter of the most recent fund’s investments are in the enterprise SaaS sector, with fintech and crypto being the next largest categories.

The slowdown

The writedowns come on the heels of the news Tiger had reduced the target size for its latest venture fund to $5 billion — down from a $6 billion target it set last fall and down more than 50% of what the firm anticipated raising earlier last year, according to another WSJ report.

The news of the dramatic value slashes is not just Tiger’s issue. If Tiger — one of the most active investors during the highs of 2020 and 2021 — one can be sure many other VC firms and crossover investors are making similar cuts to their portfolio.

Tiger has massively cut down on its investments throughout the past year, according to Crunchbase data. The firm made 158 deals in the first half of last year, but so far this year has made only 21.

The down venture market and massive cuts have not dissuaded others, however, from raising big funds. On Thursday, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, which focuses on late-stage venture and growth equity investments, closed its inaugural Growth Equity Fund at more than $1 billion.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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