This is the double-edged sword of allowing institutional investors to jump in to pre-IPO companies. They can provide staggering sums of money and allow you to put off your IPO for longer, but they bring with them many of the pain points that an IPO does. Retail investors and HFTs aren&#x27;t the ones causing boardroom drama over margin and sales numbers, and the institutional guys won&#x27;t put up with any accounting shenanigans (a la Groupon).<p>I really wonder if, after all the dust settles, many of these &quot;unicorns&quot; would have been better off IPOing around a $1-5 billion valuation. For sure their early investors will be if the late-round institutional guys are writing down their holdings by this much.