Investor Who Called Crypto Firm ‘World-Class’ Now Says It’s a Near Total Loss

Less than a year ago, private-equity investors and a pension fund touted Celsius Network as a “world-class business.” Now they are marking down their investments in the bankrupt crypto lender as a near-total loss.

In this month’s letter to investors outlining the firm’s second-quarter performance, which Barron’s has seen, the private-equity firm WestCap Group marked down the value of its fund’s $150 million investment in Celsius by 85%. “WestCap is actively working with an assembled team of best-in-class experts to ensure representation of our interests” in Celsius’s bankruptcy proceedings, the firm wrote.

WestCap and Celsius didn’t respond to requests for comment.

WestCap, which has offices in San Francisco and New York, was founded by Laurence Tosi, who had previously served as chief financial officer for both Airbnb and Blackstone Group . As of late last year, the firm had close to $9 billion under management, according to Bloomberg.