The Guardian's Olivia Solon in S.F. ... "Has the tech bubble peaked? Signs that the startup boom may be fizzling: Startups are beginning to run out of money":
- "A stream of 'down rounds' – when a company raises funds by selling shares that are valued lower than the last time they raised funds, leading its overall valuation to fall – has led investors to be more discerning. CB Insights has tracked more than 100 of these down rounds and exits since 2015, including software company Zenefits, mobile app Foursquare and online music streaming service Rdio. 'It used to be that 95% of [investment] rounds were up, now 20% are down.'"
- "Then there are the so-called 'decacorns' – unicorn startups valued at tens of billions of dollars – such as Airbnb, Uber and Palantir – which some believe are overvalued, but it's hard to tell until they go public and are forced to reveal details of their underlying finances."
"Evan Spiegel has lost $2 billion since Snapchat's post-I.P.O. peak: Snap stock falls, Spiegel's massive fortune is slowly evaporating." (Vanity Fair Hive's Maya Kosoff)