Feeder of the unicorns... That's Japan's Softbank, one of the largest tech-focused venture capital funds ever. Fresh after dropping another $9.5B to save WeWork from bankruptcy, it's got a new problem: 11 startups it’s invested in just had major layoffs. And we noticed a pattern to how their CEOs "announced" the firings:
We've got your case studies right here... Uber let go of 1,000s last year and WeWork fired 2,400. Here are Softbank's 2 most recent portfolio problems:
This is the end of the anti-profit startup era... 2019 was the year of tech IPO enthusiasm — but public market investors rejected stocks of loss-making companies like Uber and Slack. Softbank was the VC fueling Uber's money-losing scale-at-all-costs rise (FYI, Uber loses $543K every hour). Now the rest of Softbank's portfolio is adjusting to the new unicorn normal.