Sources: Tiger Global plans to slow startup investments for two quarters and is on track to raise a new fund later this year
Tiger Global, one of the biggest winners from the technology bull market, plans to decelerate the pace of its investments in startups for two quarters …
Context & Ripple Effects
Tiger Global's two-quarter slowdown is the next step in a retreat that has been visible for months: after topping US startup investing with 361 deals in 2021, it told investors it would stop chasing large late-stage rounds (a shift announced in February 2022), and later cut its newest fund's target from $6B to $5B (down from the $12.7B its prior fund raised).
The pause lands after the damage was tallied — a ~33% markdown across its VC funds erased roughly $23B in value in 2022 — yet the firm is still writing checks where conviction remains, leading Cerebras' ~$1B Series H and Nothing's $200M Series C while cutting Superhuman's valuation by 45%. The signal to read: not an exit, but a repricing and a slower cadence ahead of a new fundraise.
First-order effects
- Late-stage founders lose their most aggressive price-setter for at least two quarters; Tiger's own behavior shows the new floor, with Superhuman marked down 45% even as it leads Cerebras' ~$1B round.
- Limited partners get a clearer fundraising runway: with the current fund target already trimmed to $5B, Tiger is positioning to raise its next vehicle later this year on demonstrated discipline rather than deal count.
Second-order effects
- Rival crossover funds like Coatue and D1 — which joined Tiger in Revolut's employee share sale — face the same LP pressure and must choose between matching Tiger's slowdown or absorbing deals at valuations Tiger no longer defends.
- Secondary markets gain leverage: when a top allocator stops setting marks through new primary rounds, employee share sales like Revolut's become the pricing reference point for private tech stakes.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the unicorn-creation machine Tiger's COVID-era pace fueled slows structurally: fewer mega-rounds mean fewer startups crossing billion-dollar marks on momentum alone, and fund sizes reset toward the smaller targets Tiger itself has accepted.
- A successful raise later this year would confirm that LPs reward downsized funds and honest marks over scale — pushing the broader venture industry toward smaller vehicles and more selective deployment.
The trend: Venture's largest crossover investors are trading deal velocity for mark credibility, shrinking fund targets and slowing deployment before returning to LPs for fresh capital.