In the competitive landscape of venture capital, startups are often laser-focused on crafting the perfect pitch deck, proving product-market fit, and showcasing ambitious revenue projections. As an entrepreneur and three-time founder, I’ve been in those rooms, pitching to VCs, fielding tough questions, and navigating the nuances of valuation negotiations. One thing I’ve learned from these experiences is that while metrics and projections are vital, they’re only part of the equation. A strong leadership team—one that inspires confidence, demonstrates resilience, and adapts to shifting landscapes—is often the factor that distinguishes startups commanding top-tier valuations from the rest of the pack. READ MORE
Kevin Ryan Has Invested in More Than 180 Startups. Here’s What He Says Founders Should Focus On
Serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan is sometimes referred to as the “Godfather” of NYC tech, and for good reason. After making a name for himself by growing digital advertising company DoubleClick from a startup to a public company that eventually sold to Google for $3.1 billion, Ryan co-founded a string of New York-based startups, including Business Insider, the online-shopping company Gilt Groupe, and the wedding-planning site Zola. READ MORE
Successful Private Equity Firms Manage Talent Differently
The private equity industry has long known that it needs new approaches to value creation.
PE firms are holding onto companies in their portfolios for longer time periods and doing more complex transactions (such as industry “roll-ups”). There is more money chasing fewer potential acquisitions, and higher interest rates are creating higher bars for performance. These factors explain why operational performance now accounts for twice as much value creation as deal-making and financing. Executives have also known—or claimed to know—that leadership, human capital, and people skills are the sparks that ignite value creation: 69% of PE and portfolio company leaders cite talent, more than name operating efficiency (49%) or organic growth (30%), as the most important factor. READ MORE
AI startup gold rush: Inside the high-stakes world of AI investments
Nvidia might have become the world’s most valuable company for a brief period this year – but when it comes to investments in AI, 2024 represented yet another landmark 12 months for venture capital flowing into AI startups around the globe.
The likes of Anthropic, Scale AI, Cohere, Mistral, Figure and Elon Musk’s xAI all raised hundreds of millions of dollars in 2024 to fund their AI development and expansion efforts. READ MORE
Reimagining Venture Capital In The Age Of Exponential Technology And Big Bang Disruption
The venture capital landscape is evolving rapidly, shaped by the pace of technological advances and increasingly decentralized global business models. In particular, exponential technologies—innovations from different backgrounds that come together and double in capacity and halve in cost at astonishing speed—are generating a wave of high-impact disruptions, often known as “Big Bang Disruptions.” These disruptions shake markets almost overnight, scale fast (as they don’t need to win all five categories of sequential innovators and go after two at most) and quickly render existing solutions obsolete. READ MORE
Dimension raises $500M second fund for investing at the intersection tech and life sciences
Many VCs, particularly newer firms, readily admit that 2024 has been a challenging year for raising fresh capital.
Dimension Capital, a two-year-old venture outfit, had a different experience when raising its second fund. READ MORE
It’s Time To Break Up Silicon Valley’s Venture Capital Good Ole Boys Club
When a (potentially or obviously) lucrative private startup raises money, it’s always the usual suspects who are part of the funding round.
Big venture capitalists, such as Sequoia Capital. Big investment banks like Fidelity. And big companies with their own VC arms. Google. Apple. Amazon. Even Uber.
Driverless car company, Waymo, just closed an “oversubscribed” $5.6 billion funding round. READ MORE
How Startups Can Raise Capital In Low Liquidity Markets
Venture capital has grown out of Silicon Valley and become global by default, mirroring the industry that receives the majority of its attention: tech.
Fund managers in the U.S. and Europe still dominate the headlines, but quietly (and in fact increasingly noisily) other investors in emerging markets are honing their craft in contrasting circumstances. READ MORE
Global VC Funding Ticked Up In November Thanks To AI And Billion-Dollar Deals
Global venture funding totaled $28 billion in November 2024, Crunchbase data shows. That’s down from the $32 billion raised in October 2024, but up from the $21 billion raised in November 2023.
More than a third of funding last month came from just three companies that each raised billion-dollar-plus rounds: AI foundation model companies xAI and Anthropic, and quality engineering testing service Tricentis. READ MORE
VC Firms Like to Invest Locally
How beneficial is location when it comes to venture capital funding?
During the Covid-19 pandemic, when lavish tech campuses shuttered and tech workers began working from home, prominent venture partners announced they would whisk themselves to different, less costly pastures. Suddenly, as tech companies adopted remote work policies and meetings moved from Sand Hill Road to Zoom, it seemed like California’s badge as the tech startup capital of the U.S. was about to be revoked. READ MORE
They Turned Down an Early Pay Day to Maintain Control of Their Business. And Then Went on to Raise $190 Million.
"The next generation of consumers are living their best lives in online worlds like Roblox, Fortnite, and Discord." So says Jason Yeh, Co-Founder and General Partner of early-stage venture firm Patron. "We're all about investing in early-stage consumer companies that will shape how this gaming-native generation learns, shops, socializes, plays, invests, and, let's be honest, procrastinates online," he explained to Entrepreneur.
Patron launched in the fall of 2021. After starting their careers in venture capital, both Yeh and Patron co-founder Brian Cho went on to hold leadership positions at Riot Games, where Yeh helped launch and scale League of Legends over the next nine years. Their third Partner, Amber Atherton, built a YC and Forerunner-backed community platform that was acquired by Discord, where she helped the company scale to audiences outside of games. READ MORE
Venture Capitalists Are Pickier About What They Invest In — Here's How That Actually Benefits Startups
"More money, more success" has long been the driving force behind founder fundraising strategies. But a paradoxical truth is emerging: sometimes, less money can lead to better, more sustainable businesses.
When VCs infuse startups with significant capital early on, it's typically accompanied by an outsized valuation. It creates immense pressure. As a founder, I've experienced the challenge of raising a big round and then grappling with the expectations that come with it. READ MORE
From Founders To Funders: A Fresh Approach For Venture Capitalists To Find The Right LPs
In the third quarter of this year, venture capital fundraising tightened significantly, with only $66.5 billion raised — down 16% quarter over quarter and 15% year over year. Amid this challenging environment, institutional investors are being more cautious and reassessing their investment strategies. For some VCs, this has highlighted an often-overlooked fundraising approach: courting entrepreneurs, including ex-portfolio founders, as limited partners.
Here’s why it worked for us. READ MORE
Adapting to a competitive landscape: The PE playbook for executive compensation
In the evolving world of private equity (PE), one trend is undeniable: compensation expectations are rising, and cash incentives are increasingly crucial.
As executives consider open PE leadership roles, they’re coming in with heightened expectations, especially in a sector that has seen some of the steepest increases in compensation. READ MORE
The Beauty Of Bootstrapped Companies
In the world of startups, the allure of venture capital often overshadows the virtues of bootstrapping. Recent exits of bootstrapped companies — like Text Request’s acquisition by Commify, Syft Analytics’ sale to Xero, and Silo.AI’s exit to AMD — highlight the power and potential of staying self-funded. These examples underscore why more entrepreneurs should consider bootstrapping as a strategic choice, not as a fallback, focusing on sustainable growth which can become effective in times of trouble. READ MORE
Poor Valuation Practices Have Slowed Innovation
Consider a simple truth: Professional investing requires understanding value. If you cannot understand the value of an asset, and how it appreciates over time, you will not invest in it.
At one point in time, this understanding was the “moat” for venture capital firms. Those that could see value where others couldn’t were able to make decisions that resulted in outsized returns. Consider the investors who recognized the potential for online marketplaces in 1997, the space industry in 2002, or crypto in 2012. READ MORE
These Smaller State Startup Scenes Saw Big Gains In 2024
Vermont, Hawaii and Arkansas aren’t on the short list of states likely to serve as home to the next Silicon Valley contender.
However, by one measure worth watching — increased venture funding — these are all geographies on the rise. READ MORE
PE pressure could spur more tech M&A
In the wake of easing inflation and AI advances over the past year, some tech companies may be increasingly hungry to enter the M&A arena even as the new U.S. election has thrown a new type of uncertainty into the market, deal experts from accounting and consulting firm KPMG said in a virtual roundtable last week.
This year has seen strong growth in terms of average deal size, and modest growth in terms of volume, both of which KPMG’s Anuj Bahal, the firm’s US deal advisory and strategy sector leader for tech, media and telecom, expects to continue through 2025. READ MORE
2025 Private Equity Trends Outlook
In 2025, the private equity landscape will be shaped by several key trends, including the expansion of continuation vehicles as a vital liquidity tool, heightened regulatory scrutiny and antitrust pressures introducing both challenges and opportunities, and interest rate cuts and evolving buyer-seller risk tolerance creating a more complex deal environment.
Learn more about these important trends: READ MORE
Defense Tech Hits New Highs In 2024
Last week, defense and critical infrastructure tech startup Chaos Industries raised $145 million in a Series B — more than doubling its Series A from just last year.
The funding round was just another sign of how defense tech investment has exploded this year. The sector already has taken in more venture dollars than ever before and investment is showing few signs of letting up as defense systems become more dependent on tech, conflicts around the world heat up, and many expect a likely uptick in the Department of Defense’s budget after the recent election. READ MORE