Almost 500 meetings. That is the figure cited by an acquaintance of mine when we were talking about the number of conversations it took for him to raise his first venture capital (VC) fund. The explosion of seed funds over the last three years means limited partners (LPs) are flooded with options, making it hard to stand out. This leads to emerging managers taking anywhere from six to 18 months to raise the necessary funding.

In the present down market, I am seeing the flight-to-safety mentality dominating. One large foundation made it clear to me that their appetite is only for brand-name funds that are perceived as lower risk. LPs do not want to take the risk on emerging managers in this market. Understandably then, raising venture capital from family offices is now the primary target of 46% of emerging managers. READ MORE