Imagine the lovely conversations these companies&#x27; VC backers will be forced to have with <i>their</i> fund investors (who will surely ask about Fidelity writing down the valuations) and with fund auditors (who will surely ask about lowering the carrying value of those investments to reflect recent market developments): &quot;Why is your VC fund carrying company X at that much per share?  Fidelity just wrote it down to this much.  Please explain.&quot;<p>An immediate consequence of these very public write-downs by Fidelity will be that every other late-stage pre-IPO investor holding stock in these companies will likely write them down too.  Further consequences are more difficult to predict.  One potential outcome is lower valuations across all investment stages.  Another could be less excitement and slower deal cycles.  It could get harder to raise capital.