When Instacart lowered its internal valuation from $39 billion to $24 billion in March, many in the VC ecosystem wondered whether other startups would follow in the grocery delivery specialist's footsteps.

Several months later, , one of the largest and most closely watched VC-backed companies, made a similar move. The fintech specialist cut the value of its common shares by 28%. Meanwhile, Instacart has reduced its valuation twice more, reportedly bringing it down to $13 billion in October.

Although Instacart and Stripe are among the largest companies known to have done this, others have recently begun to reduce their internal valuations, known as 409A valuations. That's according to Glen Kernick, a managing director at K, who runs the firm's technology valuation advisory business.

Kernick said his practice, which acts as a third-party 409A appraiser to dozens of late-stage and pre-IPO companies, has over the last few months advised about 40% to 50% of the companies it analyzed to cut their valuations—at least in part because many are falling short of their own performance targets.

A fair market valuation of a company is generally based on a blend of the startup's performance—whether it is hitting its revenue forecasts and other key metrics—and valuations of comparable public market companies.

In this environment, where most of the stocks are trading lower, Kroll, formerly known as Duff & Phelps, seems to be placing more weight on startups' ability to hit their own revenue targets. The majority of the companies that had their 409A valuations lowered by Kroll are falling short of their financial projections, Kernick said.

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