Sequoia Capital just marked down to zero the value of its stake in the cryptocurrency exchange FTX — a stake that, as of last week, likely represented among the most sizable unrealized gains in the venture firm’s 50-year history.
It alerted its limited partners in a letter that it sent out to them this evening. (See below.)
When Sequoia invested in the Series B round of the Bahamas-based outfit in July 2021, FTX was valued at $18 billion. Two months later, the company was valued by investors at $25 billion. In January of this year, FTX raised a $400 million in Series C round that brought its total funding to $2 billion and its valuation to a breathtaking $32 billion.
Now, following a series of missteps — that’s the best-case scenario — FTX isn’t just worthless. According to the WSJ, FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told investors today that he needed emergency