Chase Coleman (Trades, Portfolio)’s Tiger Global Management on Friday disclosed that it bid goodbye to a third of its stake in SurveyMonkey (SVMK, Financial), a company it backed from its early stages.
From Wednesday to Friday of last week, Tiger sold 10,063,993 shares of SVMK Inc., SurveyMonkey’s parent, reducing its position to 20,408,092 shares from 30,472,0845 shares. The firm made the trades at prices ranging from $15.15 to $15.54 per share. SVMK Inc. shares traded Monday around $15.45, down 0.46% for the day and up 29% year to date.
On Thursday, Tiger also announced that its powerhouse head of private equity for 13 years, Lee Fixel, would leave to invest his own money. Fixel was known for leading investments in prominent companies, including SurveyMonkey, where he joined the board of directors in 2013. Some of the SurveyMonkey shares Tiger Global sold last week are listed as being owned by Tiger Global, Chase Coleman (Trades, Portfolio), portfolio manager Scott Schleifer and Fixel. The majority of the sales were made by Tiger Global Private Investment Partners and listed Tiger Global, Coleman, Shleifer and Fixel as owners.
Coleman, who is one of Julian Robertson (Trades, Portfolio)’s “Tiger Cubs,” has made a mint on tech startups, including ground-floor investments in Facebook (FB, Financial) and Spotify (SPOT, Financial). His largest public-equity holdings at Tiger Global, his New York-based global hedge fund, as of Dec. 31 were Spotify, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT, Financial) and China’s JD.com (JD).
Tiger took a stake in SurveyMonkey, a maker of survey software, before its initial public offering in September at $12 a share. According to filings, Tiger Global and its affiliates’ position totaled 29.3% of the company’s shares prior to the offering, second only to that of the Sheryl K. Sandberg Revocable Trust, which had a 9.9% stake.
The company reported fourth-quarter financial results on Feb. 13. SurveyMonkey posted $67.9 million in revenue, a 19% increase from the same quarter the prior year. Paying users increased 7% to 646,727, with average revenue per user up to $425 from $375 a year prior. It also recorded its third consecutive losing quarter, with a $25.2 million net loss compared to $8.07 million in net income a year prior.
SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie in the related earnings release reiterated the company’s plan to double its business within several years by investing in new products, geographies and enterprise sales, calling the survey software category a “multi-billion-dollar global market.”
During the fourth quarter, Coleman exited stakes in other tech companies, including Twitter (TWTR), Apple (AAPL) and Twilio (TWLO). His largest newly disclosed positions were in Brazil’s payments company StoneCo Ltd. (STNE), which Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) also bought, and China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME).
See Chase Coleman (Trades, Portfolio)'s long portfolio here.
