There’s been a healthy amount of chatter lately from analysts and tech writers that we are approaching a meltdown in startup financing. Unicorns, those startups valued at $1 billion or higher, are being downgraded at a rapid clip. The most recent victim is Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce firm devalued last month from $15.2 billion to $11 billion. Another unicorn, UK-based Powa Technologies, was once valued at $2.7 billion but went bankrupt in February. Several other well-known unicorns that have experienced valuation cuts in recent months include Palantir, Dropbox, Snapchat, Jawbone, and Zenefits. This is disastrous not only for the companies but also for the limited partners of the VC firms who are seeing their investments devalued by 30% or more overnight.
