Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. (“IPOA”), which raised $690 million on September 13th, 2017, nearly one year ago today, might be in trouble.
According to Axios and the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the venture firm of Chamath Palihapitiya, who is IPOA’s Chairman and CEO, is “imploding“. Failed venture firms are not totally shocking, but both articles pointedly place the blame squarely on Mr. Palihapitiya.
From the Silicon Valley Business Journal:
“Social Capital appears to be done, at least as a major venture capital investor,” Primack writes.
The firm’s leadership team is “hemorrhaging” its top talent, its limited partners are deeply unhappy with the ways things are being run, and its hedge fund is shutting down, Primack reports.
In addition, “Palihapitiya is regularly absent from the Social Capital offices, instead spending much of his time in Europe. He also is said by multiple sources to have repeatedly blown off investor meetings, sometimes sending regrets just minutes before they were to begin,” according to the report.
Current and former Social Capital employees say it could take days or weeks to get email replies from Palihapitiya.
In a tweet on Friday afternoon, Palihapitiya said the Axios story was “not accurate,” but did not elaborate further.
Social Capital Hedosohia still has one year of life left until they need to complete, but that detail is cold comfort to investors. The share is currently trading at $9.87, but the warrant is trading down nearly 10% at $1.22.
Having said that, a lot can happen in twelve months. And if you REALLY want to try and find a silver lining in all this, maybe if the venture firm shuts down it will force Mr. Palihapitiya to focus full-time on the SPAC.
Everybody loves a comeback.
Despite a week of general pull-backs in the market, fintech firm Ibotta (NYSE:IBTA) nonetheless took the dive and had a good week debuting via a traditional IPO in the choppy waters. The company, which provides app-based consumer cashback discounts on purchases, priced its IPO at $88, above its proposed range of $76 to $84, and...
At the SPAC of Dawn Happy Friday! SPACInsider has unveiled new presets on SPAC Performance accessible via the Data drop-down to easily sort for the highest and lowest performing active SPACs and de-SPACs. On the de-SPAC side, Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) continues to be well ahead of the pack, logging a 710% return by share price adjusted...
AGBA (NASDAQ:AGBA) stock is up over +90% this morning following a +211% premarket spike on news it has signed a definitive agreement to combine with social streaming video platform Triller. AGBA, the company itself, was formed by the $555 million combination between a SPAC of the same name and TAG Companies, a financial services firm...
At the SPAC of Dawn Since closing its combination with DHC last month, AI customer engagement firm BEN (NASDAQ:BNAI) has rolled out new partnerships with call center and healthcare clients. And, while it faces a fair bit of competition in the chatbot realm, several high-profile institutions have demonstrated that creating one that provides useful services...
Blue Ocean (NASDAQ:BOCN) provided significantly more texture today in the presentation for its $275 million combination with Asian digital media group TNL Mediagene, which it expects to hit profitability in the second half of the year despite a slight shakeup in financing for the transaction. The first big update in the first investor deck is...