Malcolm and the unicorns

Malcolm Turnbull is absolutely right to be throwing the switch to innovation – Australia is not going to mine or bank its way into an improvement in its long term growth prospects, at least not with the existing models. But there needs to be some circumspection around innovation investment, because bad things can happen. Case in point: some of the big names in global disruption have been jolted by a series of write-downs, disappointing listings and revenue misses over the past month as investors start to question the business models of the ‘unicorns’ – start-ups valued at over a billion dollars. The nervousness is happening just as new figures emerged showing the big established VC’s are pulling back from the early-stage market. US fund manager Fidelity, with assets of over US$2 trillion, took the knife to its holdings in both Snapchat and Dropbox, cutting its valuation in the disappearing messenger service by 25% just a few months after it made the investment. Snapchat has been valued at US$15b by investors. Read more here (VIEW LINK)