One of the supposed key differences between professional...

One of the supposed key differences between professional investors and the amateurs is that they don't throw good money after bad! Think they've clearly failed that test here.

The other key issue I reckon - apart from the loss of capital itself - is that it casts very serious doubt on what I understand was one of the core pillars of their investment model and strategy which is the supposedly protected investment structures that they apply. I'm pretty sure I read claims in their literature somewhere that they had 'downside protection' through their deal structures which would allow them to recover value even in the case of significant loss of value by the business.

I think this event demonstrates that (i) in the case of the software businesses they're targeting that where the value is predominantly intangible that such protection is illusory (ii) if the supposed protection is at the direct expense of your business partners (e.g. founders) then there are badly misaligned interests and such founders are encouraged to take more risk and then to walk away when things go bad as their holding is already worthless anyway.

Serious flaws that I think management and shareholders need to consider carefully...