Tiger Global's investor letter shows its fund dropped 14.2% in May, due to losses in tech stocks and markdowns in private assets, pushing its 2022 losses to 52%
Context & Ripple Effects
The May drawdown extends a slide that began with Tiger Global's first annual loss since 2016 in 2021 and accelerated through a first quarter that cost it roughly $10B. By mid-May the firm had already shed about $17B for the year, erasing two-thirds of its gains since 2001, so the 14.2% monthly drop lands on top of an already historic unwind rather than starting one.
What makes this month's letter different is the second driver: markdowns in private assets are now hitting the same fund as public tech losses, confirming that the startup valuations behind its venture book are being marked down alongside the stocks. That convergence is what pushed the year-to-date figure to 52%.
First-order effects
- Limited partners in the flagship fund are absorbing a 52% loss through May, with the long-only and hedge fund books both exposed to the same tech selloff that drove the earlier quarterly declines.
- Private holdings can no longer be treated as insulated from the public-market repricing — the fund's own letter attributes part of the May loss to markdowns, meaning startup valuations inside the portfolio are moving down with the Nasdaq.
Second-order effects
- Portfolio startups face a mark-setter that has already cut its own book, tightening the reference prices available to every founder raising at a new round out of Tiger-backed comparables.
- Rival crossover funds holding similar late-stage positions come under pressure to mark their books to comparable levels or explain to their own LPs why they haven't, spreading the repricing across the private market.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the crossover model itself — deploying large public-style checks into private rounds at public-like multiples — gets repriced by LPs, who now have two years of evidence that these vehicles carry equity-market beta without daily liquidity.
- The gap between public prices and stale private marks becomes a standing audit issue: the later disclosures showing deepening paper losses suggest further markdowns were still working through the book after May.
The trend: Crossover funds built on the 2021 valuation regime are being force-marked to reality, with Tiger Global's monthly letters turning private-market repricing into a visible, LP-facing event.