The current economic downturn has seen companies scramble to stay afloat and survive, resorting to tactics such as mass layoffs and freezing of recruitments. VCs and investors like Sequoia and Y Combinator have already rung the warning bell and heralded the end of the days when startups could grow at any cost, and with any cost. Billions are no longer pouring in to support startups (though there are some exceptions).
Now, to make things worse for startups and increase their woes, prolific investment firm Tiger Global has decided to cut down on writing checks for the next two quarters.
Known to have backed several high-profile names in India such as Flipkart, Ola, and Delhivery, as well as unicorns like Groww, Tiger Global has been one of the leading investors of the previous year. It invested in a spectacular 361 deals in 2021, especially during the seed and Series A and B rounds, and was a major part of the record funding that startups scooped up last year.
In contrast, 2022 is a rather lackluster year, with unicorns no longer popping up by the week and funds drying up. Additionally, Tiger Global lost billions due to the brutal sell-off of tech stocks and plummeting valuations this year – the firm incurred losses of $25 billion till June and was down by 50% this year so far.
The decision of the New York-headquartered Tiger Global to pull back on its investments in the coming months makes sense in this context, especially since things do not look to be changing anytime soon.
The same was told by Tiger Global partner Alex Cook to founders earlier this month. He also informed that the investment company was looking to raise a new fund this year. It is unknown exactly how much capital will be raked in for the new fund.
At that time, Cook and Scott Shleifer (Tiger’s global head for private investments), assured a group of its Indian founders that the firm did not intend to hold back support (read: capital) for follow-on investments for those in its portfolio who performed the best.
