As declining technology stocks have hacked the value of investor Tiger Global Management’s public stocks this year, the company has also slashed the value of its private stock in tech firms.
Tiger Global — one of the largest tech investors in the world — invested at least $19 billion in private tech companies in the last year and a half when startups were at their peaks, The Information reported Wednesday (Nov. 9), citing internal Tiger Global documents.
Among the companies that had their value marked down were non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea and cybersecurity firm Lacework, the report stated.
Reached by PYMNTS Wednesday, Tiger Global declined to comment.
As of the end of June, Tiger said its largest private fund — worth $12.7 billion — showed a paper loss of 8%, according to the report, which cited internal documents.
Those documents also showed that the huge fund “significantly” marked down paper returns from earlier funds, the report stated.
These markdowns are probably not finished, according to the report, as publicly-traded tech companies have continued falling, and many private companies are overvalued.
PYMNTS noted earlier this year that a sell-off in tech stocks had cost Tiger Global nearly $17 billion, meaning the fund had seen about two-thirds of the gains it had built up over the course of two decades erased in four months.
“The magnitude of the loss is breathtaking, especially for a fund with ‘hedge’ in its name,” Andrew Beer, managing member at investment firm Dynamic Beta said in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) in May. “This shows how even the most talented and plugged-in tech investors failed to see the train coming down the tracks.”
Last month, Tiger Global announced plans to raise $6 billion in a new fund, targeting startups “largely in enterprise themes and in India” as well as “in a lower-valuation environment,” the fund said in a letter to investors.
Known as PIP 16, the fund will focus on internet-enabled enterprise software, FinTech and consumer companies because they’re “underpenetrated categories” with potential for fast, long-term growth, the letter stated.