Personally, I don't see what the hubbub is about. A 409a is a standard instrument used to price options, a standard approach to a 409A valuation is the base the value of a company on its comparables, including public comparables.
If I were conducting this valuation, I haven't done this myself, but I most definitely read our 409A valuations closely. I'd imagine that the outside firm hired to conduct the analysis on Fintech would use data like:
BLOCK (down 49% in last 6 months)
PAYPAL (down 60% in last 6 months)
COINBASE (down 75% in last 6 months)
INTUIT (down 30% in last 6 months)
VISA (down 5% in last 6 months)
SHOPIFY (down 70% in last 6 months)
Everyone at these fintechs, has seen the valuation of their company drop significantly (with the exceptions of VISA in the last 6 months. It's possible that stripe's performance is closer to VISA than to SHOPIFY, but only dropping 30% is likely pretty generous given the broader market.
Anyone with options at any of these public companies is dealing with the same challenges.
There was a big shift over the last decade towards late stage startups and public companies issuing RSUs instead of options. Blonk stopped issuing options in like 2014. Coinbase is all RSU. Shopify is all RSU. The others I don't have personal knowledge of. It's possible someone is still vesting options from years ago but if so they're most certainly not underwater.
If I were conducting this valuation, I haven't done this myself, but I most definitely read our 409A valuations closely. I'd imagine that the outside firm hired to conduct the analysis on Fintech would use data like:
BLOCK (down 49% in last 6 months)
PAYPAL (down 60% in last 6 months)
COINBASE (down 75% in last 6 months)
INTUIT (down 30% in last 6 months)
VISA (down 5% in last 6 months)
SHOPIFY (down 70% in last 6 months)
Everyone at these fintechs, has seen the valuation of their company drop significantly (with the exceptions of VISA in the last 6 months. It's possible that stripe's performance is closer to VISA than to SHOPIFY, but only dropping 30% is likely pretty generous given the broader market.
Anyone with options at any of these public companies is dealing with the same challenges.