Is it going to shock anyone that the best friend of the celebrity CEO shorted the stock of the bank that he then proceeded to help destroy?

Did the celebrity CEO get in on the action?

Peter Thiel

Elon Musk

Silicon Valley Bank

Thiel’s Founders Fund Withdrew Millions From Silicon Valley Bank

(Bloomberg) — Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund had no money with Silicon Valley Bank as of Thursday morning as the bank descended into chaos, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Founders Fund withdrew millions from SVB, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It joined other venture funds that took dramatic steps to limit exposure to the now-failed financial institution. Founders Fund also advised its portfolio companies that there was no downside to moving their money away from SVB, even if the risk was low.

Founders Fund acted in other ways to move its business away from SVB. On Thursday, as the bank was beginning to unravel, the firm started what’s known as a capital call. That’s a run-of-the-mill activity in the venture capital world, in which a VC firm asks its investors, or limited partners, to send it money in order to make investments in startups — the core function of most VC firms. It began by asking those backers to transfer the funds to accounts at SVB, as it has done for years, the person said.

But the firm learned that its limited partners were encountering issues using SVB services as they tried to transfer the funds — they weren’t immediately going through as expected, the person said.

Quickly, Founders Fund asked its investors to transfer the money to other banks instead. The fund acted to ensure that startup funding deals that were slated to close in the coming days were not delayed, the person said.

Today, Founders Fund has no exposure to SVB. The person did not say if the firm’s cash withdrawals happened on Thursday, as the startup world was panicking about SVB’s financial position, or earlier. – Source

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund made more than $1B offloading 8 years of crypto investments just before markets soured

One month before billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel raved about the advantages of Bitcoin during a speech at a Miami conference, his VC firm Founders Fund had already offloaded an eight-year bet on cryptocurrencies.

While crypto was once one of its core positions, by March 2022, the firm had generated $1.8 billion from selling off the vast majority of its crypto holdings, the Financial Times reported, citing a person close to the fund. Two-thirds of its crypto investment consisted of Bitcoin, according to the FT.

The selloff was timely, and protected the firm from the collapse in Bitcoin’s price later that year that would take it to about $15,599 last November, its lowest price in two years.

But in April at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Thiel made no mention of his fund’s massive crypto selloff. He also didn’t waver in his support for Bitcoin. During a speech, he said, “We are at the end of the fiat money regime,” and added that Bitcoin was undervalued but “has every potential to replace gold.”

Founders Fund declined to comment to Reuters. – Source

Read more on these Tags: ,