Has the tiger turned into a sick cat? Tiger Global Investment suffers a 70% loss in Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and downgrades its investment valuation in OpenSea by 90%.

According to a Bloomberg report, following the markdown of its investment in FTX to 0 as reported previously, Tiger Global Management, one of the world's largest hedge funds, is currently facing an 18% paper loss, primarily due to a new round of markdowns on several investments.

Multiple investments in the red, is Tiger Global a "leek"?

Tiger Global Management's PIP15 fund, which raised $13 billion last year, saw a 45% reduction in the valuation of AI technology email company Superhuman and a 72% cut in the valuation of privacy search engine platform DuckDuckGo.

Tiger Global also decreased its investment position in the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) by 69%. According to data from Opensea, the average coin-based trading price of this NFT series dropped by 58% in the past year, while according to Coinmarketcap, the price of $ETH rose by 63% in the past year.

NFT investments taking a big hit: BAYC suffering losses, bearish on OpenSea investments

Tiger Global Management's NFT investments also performed poorly. BAYC saw a 32% drop in the past year, while Tiger Global made even larger valuation adjustments, indicating that Tiger Global may have entered the NFT craze at its peak.

Tiger Global also reduced the valuation of its investment in NFT trading platform OpenSea by 94%, leaving only 1/20 of the original value, reflecting the current downturn in the NFT market.

Venture capital industry facing challenges

Since the Fed's first interest rate hike in March 2022, startups have been struggling to survive in the face of rising interest rates and financing difficulties.

The reduction of hot money in the market is also affecting businesses related to high-risk assets. Meanwhile, the venture capital industry is undergoing a new round of self-examination. For example, Coatue Management led by Philippe Laffont also made a 90% valuation adjustment to OpenSea and different levels of valuation reductions to Calendly and Notion.

Looking for the culprit? Frequent personnel changes at Tiger Global

On November 21, 2021, Tiger Global announced that Scott Shleifer, head of its risk investment department, would transition to a senior advisor role while continuing as a partner. Tiger Global stated that this decision was based on family considerations, but the timing of this personnel change has raised external attention and speculation.

Last year, Tiger Global reduced the valuation of its risk funds by about 33%, with a total size of $23 billion. When faced with reports from Bloomberg, the company managing $50 billion in assets declined to comment.