>By raising debt rather than equity, it doesn’t have to worry about poor signaling from a down-round raised at a lower valuation than the $8.5 billion it set in June 2015.
How is the signaling from this any better? It still plainly reveals that the previous valuation is not representative of reality. The only difference is that we don't have another imaginary number to outright replace it with. And can we all agree to stop parroting valuation numbers based off investors buying preferred stock?
There is no valuation in this round. There is no cap. It's just a discount off of a valuation in the future. I would imagine the conversation was "the market is gyrating so much we can't agree on value" so let's defer the valuation until later, and we'll give the investors a 20% (and possibly larger) discount once the public markets establish a valuation.
How is the signaling from this any better? It still plainly reveals that the previous valuation is not representative of reality. The only difference is that we don't have another imaginary number to outright replace it with. And can we all agree to stop parroting valuation numbers based off investors buying preferred stock?