Sylebra Capital, the Tiger Grandcub hedge fund led by Dan Gibson, has suffered a sharp downturn following an impressive 27.2% gain by April 2024, to finish the year with only a 7.8% gain in its main fund, Sylebra Bell, according to a report by Institutional Investor.
The firm’s smaller Sylebra Parc fund managed a modest 2.7% increase.
The downward slide has continued into 2025, with Sylebra posting a 5.7% loss in January, following a 13.8% decline in December. These losses reflect a broader struggle among hedge funds that focus on small- and mid-cap tech, media, and telecom stocks — sectors that Sylebra heavily favours while avoiding mega-cap tech companies like the “Magnificent Seven.”
Sylebra has positioned itself as an expert in short-selling, maintaining a low net exposure between -15% and +15%, significantly lower than the typical tech-focused hedge fund. However, short squeezes and underperformance in small and mid-cap stocks — as well as challenges with position sizing — contributed to the fund’s losses in late 2024 and early 2025.
At year-end, Sylebra’s three largest long positions were software companies: Paycom Software (18% of US long assets) – up 1.2% in January; Impinj (12% of US long assets) – down 12.6% in January; and Elastic NV – up 13% in January.
While Elastic and Paycom posted gains, Impinj’s sharp decline weighed on performance. The stock had surged 55% in 2024, but remained volatile after a 40% drop from its mid-October peak.
Additional losses came from: PureCycle Technologies (10% of US assets) – down 9% in January; RingCentral – down 2.6%; and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) – down 4%.
