INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Marty Pichinson gets called a lot of things: Silicon Valley undertaker, its terminator, a grave digger
These aren&t meant as slights; Pichinson is the founder of Sherwood Partners, a restructuring firm that Bay Area venture firms frequently
turn to when they need someone to help sell off the assets of startups they have funded
The idea is to return at least some money to the company creditors and, if anything is left, to the VCs, too.
We last checked in with
Pichinson almost exactly three years ago when the startup world was humming along
Even then, because of the sheer number of companies that get funded — and thus the number of startups that invariably don&t make it —
Sherwood Partners was helping to wind down two to four companies a week.
Now, as he told us in conversation last week, it winding down two
to three companies every day.
So who is shutting down, how does it all work and what can VCs expect to get in terms of a return in the age
of the coronavirus?
Right now, Pichinson says the shutdowns are across verticals and across stages
&We&re in companies that raised $10 million to $25 million, to companies that raised up to $1.5 billion
It doesn&t matter what size they are; when they come to us, they&re all broke
If we&re closing it down to clean up and monetize what we can, they are basically in the same position, whether they raised $20 million or
they were once a billion-dollar business.&
