Bailador bids good riddance to Viostream

Ex-All Blacks captain and former Fairfax chief David Kirk had good news for investors in his Bailador Technology Investments this month, outlining a “strong start” to the year in the listed VC fund’s January update, published last week.

Mentioned prominently was that Bailador (Spanish for “dancer”) had sold its less-flamboyantly named video-streaming company Viostream to Bloom Venture Partners, for $1.1 million.

This is small change for a $170 million portfolio. But Kirk and co-founder Paul Wilson pronounced themselves “pleased” nonetheless, given they’d manage to offload the business for “more than our holding value”, while freeing up time to focus on “bigger opportunities in the portfolio”.

Such phrasing hides a multitude of sins. Viostream’s holding value, you see, was zilch. Bailador wrote down Viostream from $23 million to a mere $7.4 million in 2018, and down again to $0 last year.

A more plain-spoken assessment of the Viostream investment would conclude: at least wasn’t a total write-off.