Sequoia Capital Marks Down $210M FTX Investment to $0

• Sequoia Capital announces investment mark down to $0.
• Due to the potential possibility of bankruptcy Sequoia has marked down its initial investment of $210 million.
• Sequoia Capital shared that its exposure to FTX was limited.

Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital announced on social media that it has marked down its initial investment of $210 towards the cryptocurrency exchange FTX to $0, due to potential bankruptcy and solvency issues.

“We own FTX.com and FTX US in one private fund, Global Growth Fund III,” cited the Twitter post. Sequoia shared that FTX is not included in the top ten positions of the fund Sequoia’s $150 million cost basis accounts represent less than 3% of the committed fund capital.

In a note to investors shared over Twitter, Sequoia Capital mentioned:

In recent days, a liquidity crunch has created solvency risk for FTX. The full nature and extent of this risk is not known at this time. Based on our current understanding, we are marking our investment down to $0.

Moreover, Sequoia stated that SCGE Fund, LP invested 1% of its 9/30/2022 portfolio of $63.5 million in FTX.com, as well as FTX US. The venture capital further clarified that even though it is in the “business of taking risk,” it conducted “extensive research” during the time of the investment.

Sequoia also noted that FTX generated $1 billion in revenue and over $250 million in operating income which was announced publicly in August 2022, while highlighting that its exposure to FTX was limited.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX which was valued at $32 billion in early 2022, was found unusually involved with Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research. While the world’s leading crypto exchange Binance, initially agreed to purchase FTX, the deal soon fell through due to corporate due diligence, mishandled customers, and alleged US agency investigations.