Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

Re:Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud by calpaterson on Thursday August 10, 2017 @05:33PM (#14984519)

From crunchbase (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/benchmark/investment...) it looks like Benchmark made three investments in Uber, the last of which was in 2013. The funds that VCs raise normally only operate for a specific term of eg 5 years, so now is the kind of time they will want to get out.

Incidentally from what I can make of their investments in Uber on crunchbase, they need Uber's market cap to be $31bn just to break even on their investment (13% of the business for $411m). That's probably what they're fighting for.

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Re:Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud by iamtherhino on Thursday August 10, 2017 @05:57PM (#14984718)

I think you dropped a 0.

0.13*31BN = ~$4BN, still a 10X return if they've invested $400M.

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Re:Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud by prostoalex on Thursday August 10, 2017 @07:21PM (#14985282)

It's likely not distributed evenly between their three investments (and perhaps three separate funds), and with the late-stage checks typically being larger, it might impact the ROI of that late-stage fund more severely.

I don't really think the urgency is there, though, VCs have been dealing with illiquid companies for decades, if they need to wind down the fund, they will either distribute the shares directly to the LPs or create a placeholder SPV and distribute partnership interests.

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Re:Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud by calpaterson on Friday August 11, 2017 @03:30AM (#14987386)

Yes I did! Thanks.

Can't edit it now, unfortunately.

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