Tiger Global is getting mauled, as one of the biggest tech selloffs in history shows no signs of slowing down.
The tech-focused hedge fund—worth $80 billion, according to Bloomberg—has endured a rough start to 2022 amid the larger tech stock market battering over the past month. Tiger Global reportedly lost $17 billion earlier in May due to the selloff, one of the biggest dollar declines in hedge fund history.
Things now seem to be going from bad to worse.
Losses at Tiger Global have hit 52% this year, according to an investor letter sent out this week by Tiger Global managers and reviewed by Bloomberg, and the fund is warning investors to brace themselves.
“We take very seriously that our recent performance does not live up to the standards we have set for ourselves over the last 21 years and that you rightfully expect,” Tiger Global reportedly wrote.
Tiger Global did not immediately respond to Coins2Day’s request for comment.
Company CEO Chase Coleman is one of dozens of “Tiger Cubs,” former employees at investor Julian Robertson’s now-defunct hedge fund and investment firm Tiger Management who went on to start their own hedge funds. Another notable Tiger Cub is investor Bill Hwang, founder and manager of the failed hedge fund Archegos Capital, which collapsed spectacularly last year and lost banks as much as $10 billion.
Coleman and Tiger Global have so far had a significantly more positive investment run, and the company has been one of the biggest winners in the technology bull market of the last decade.
Tiger Global earned its name as the world’s premier “unicorn hunter,” stalking and investing in tech startups focused on internet, software, and financial technology at a breakneck pace over the years.
But with the massive selloff of tech stocks this year, the tech industry’s golden years may well be coming to an end. The current monetary policy environment, marked by a progressive rise in borrowing rates over the past few months, has not been kind to tech stocks, which tend to be more speculative and to rely on innovation and future profit streams: unlikely conditions when an emergency brake is being pulled on the economy.
Tiger Global and other Tiger Cub companies have been pulling out of more volatile tech stocks for weeks. In May, Tiger Global shed its stakes in several high-profile tech companies, including AirBnB, Didi, Bumble, Netflix, and Peloton.
Some of these companies, such as Netflix and Peloton, enjoyed meteoric rises in valuations during the pandemic, but have come violently crashing down to earth this year, leaving investors spooked, as the tech selloff has hit pandemic-era darlings the hardest.
