Venture capital major Sequoia Capital has apologised to investors for the loss for its entire $150 million investment in failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, according to a report by Private Equity News.
The firm was forced to write down the investment in its entirety after the sudden collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s digital assets empire after is struggled to meet a wave of withdrawals.
The report cites unnamed sources as revealing that the apology came during a call to investors with Sequoia announcing plans to tighten up its due diligence process for future investments saying it believed it had been misled by FTX.
During the call, a Sequoia partner reportedly said that the firm, an early backer of the likes of Apple, Alphabet’s Google, and Airbnb, will in future have even early-stage startups’ financial statements audited by one of the Big Four accounting firms.
While Sequoia says it did carry out due diligence on FTX, ut believes that recent bankruptcy fillings have led it to the conclusion that it was was misled by Bankman-Fried over the exchange’s connections to his investment firm Alameda Research.
