那个叫马后炮的人妻好像把aapl put的帖子删除了# Stock
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It’s the end of the rainbow for Silicon Valley’s unicorns — and the pots
of gold are getting snatched away, too.
Fidelity Investments has slashed the value of its stake in Snapchat by 25
percent, making the disappearing-photos app the latest and biggest casualty
among so-called tech unicorns valued at $1 billion and up.
Snapchat — whose 25-year-old CEO Evan Spiegel earlier this year was jetting
around the globe courting investors in China and the Persian Gulf — saw
its value sink to $12 billion in September from $16 billion in May.
“It’s emblematic of the moment,” said Chris Douvos of Venture Investment
Associates in Palo Alto, Calif. “These are companies that had extremely
high valuations based on momentum and hype, and which are at last returning
to Earth.”
A Snapchat spokeswoman declined to comment on Tuesday.
Douvos, whose firm invests in startups and venture funds, said he wasn’t
privy to Snapchat’s financials. But he notes that investors are growing
increasingly restless with startups that are racking up losses in the name
of growth.
Indeed, Snapchat’s painful discount followed the bad news last month that
cloud-storage startup Dropbox saw its $10 billion valuation take a 24
percent hit on a markdown by a BlackRock investment fund.
And last week, payments startup Square priced its initial public offering 35
percent below the $6 billion valuation it had won in its latest private-
funding round during the past year.
It’s a painful reminder that these $1 billion-plus valuations have to stand
up to the scrutiny of the public markets.
Nevertheless, the markdown of Snapchat — whose viral spread among teens has
grown its user base to more than 100 million — still came as a shock to
many tech insiders.
Earlier this week, Snapchat confirmed that its users are viewing more than 6
billion videos a day on its mobile app. That staggering sum — triple what
Snapchat claimed in May — is closing in on the 8 billion daily video views
reported last week by Facebook.
Critics, however, note that Snapchat reportedly measures its video views in
fractions of a second, versus the three-second minimum required by Facebook
— a crucial distinction for advertisers.
Snapchat is “struggling to figure out how to monetize” its wildly popular
app, and that’s worrying tech investors, according to one Silicon Valley
insider.
“It’s never been clear what the revenue model is, and the path from
customer acquisition to engagement to monetization is not always a straight
line,” the source added.
Meanwhile, longstanding worries are growing that Dropbox’s file-sharing
services are a commodity that’s vulnerable to competition from bigger
rivals like Google and Amazon.
A few smaller unicorns also have been kneecapped, including Hoboken, NJ-
based Jet.com.
Last week, Bloomberg News reported that e-commerce startup has settled on a
$1.5 billion valuation to raise more than $500 million in cash. In July, Jet
.com had been seeking a $3 billion valuation, according to reports.
A Jet.com spokeswoman declined to comment.
of gold are getting snatched away, too.
Fidelity Investments has slashed the value of its stake in Snapchat by 25
percent, making the disappearing-photos app the latest and biggest casualty
among so-called tech unicorns valued at $1 billion and up.
Snapchat — whose 25-year-old CEO Evan Spiegel earlier this year was jetting
around the globe courting investors in China and the Persian Gulf — saw
its value sink to $12 billion in September from $16 billion in May.
“It’s emblematic of the moment,” said Chris Douvos of Venture Investment
Associates in Palo Alto, Calif. “These are companies that had extremely
high valuations based on momentum and hype, and which are at last returning
to Earth.”
A Snapchat spokeswoman declined to comment on Tuesday.
Douvos, whose firm invests in startups and venture funds, said he wasn’t
privy to Snapchat’s financials. But he notes that investors are growing
increasingly restless with startups that are racking up losses in the name
of growth.
Indeed, Snapchat’s painful discount followed the bad news last month that
cloud-storage startup Dropbox saw its $10 billion valuation take a 24
percent hit on a markdown by a BlackRock investment fund.
And last week, payments startup Square priced its initial public offering 35
percent below the $6 billion valuation it had won in its latest private-
funding round during the past year.
It’s a painful reminder that these $1 billion-plus valuations have to stand
up to the scrutiny of the public markets.
Nevertheless, the markdown of Snapchat — whose viral spread among teens has
grown its user base to more than 100 million — still came as a shock to
many tech insiders.
Earlier this week, Snapchat confirmed that its users are viewing more than 6
billion videos a day on its mobile app. That staggering sum — triple what
Snapchat claimed in May — is closing in on the 8 billion daily video views
reported last week by Facebook.
Critics, however, note that Snapchat reportedly measures its video views in
fractions of a second, versus the three-second minimum required by Facebook
— a crucial distinction for advertisers.
Snapchat is “struggling to figure out how to monetize” its wildly popular
app, and that’s worrying tech investors, according to one Silicon Valley
insider.
“It’s never been clear what the revenue model is, and the path from
customer acquisition to engagement to monetization is not always a straight
line,” the source added.
Meanwhile, longstanding worries are growing that Dropbox’s file-sharing
services are a commodity that’s vulnerable to competition from bigger
rivals like Google and Amazon.
A few smaller unicorns also have been kneecapped, including Hoboken, NJ-
based Jet.com.
Last week, Bloomberg News reported that e-commerce startup has settled on a
$1.5 billion valuation to raise more than $500 million in cash. In July, Jet
.com had been seeking a $3 billion valuation, according to reports.
A Jet.com spokeswoman declined to comment.
