Stop Pitching the Wrong Investors

The Venture Capital industry has pulled off the greatest rebrand in modern history. #VentureCapital #Startups They convinced the world that burning billions of dollars is “innovation.” Read that again. -A founder loses money for 8 years straight? Visionary. -A normal business makes steady profits? “Not venture scalable.” -VCs don’t fund businesses anymore. They fund dopamine. #StartupCulture The startup ecosystem today runs on: • FOMO • founder mythology • inflated TAM slides • vanity metrics • subsidized growth • and PowerPoint-driven economics Half the industry is just rich people marking up each other’s hallucinations. #VC #TechBubble One fund inflates the valuation. Another fund validates it. Media amplifies it. Twitter glorifies it. Employees celebrate it. Then the company implodes three years later. And somehow everyone still gets invited to podcasts. #SiliconValley The biggest lie in startups is: “If the product is good, the market will reward it.” Wrong. The market rewards storytelling first. #Branding #Narratives That’s why some startups with no profits become billion-dollar unicorns… …while profitable businesses get ignored because they’re “not sexy enough.” #Unicorns #Business VCs claim they’re backing innovation. But many are really running a momentum casino disguised as capitalism. #Innovation #Economics Founders are told: • grow faster • hire faster • burn more • raise bigger rounds • dominate the market Nobody says: “Build something financially sane.” Because sanity doesn’t generate 100x returns. Insanity does. #Blitzscaling #GrowthAtAllCosts And the darkest part? The system is designed so that even when startups fail… The people at the top still win. Founders lose years. Employees lose jobs. Retail investors lose money. But funds move on to the next “revolutionary category-defining future of humanity.” #Investing #IPO Same script. Different deck. Bigger valuation. VC isn’t just funding companies anymore. It’s manufacturing belief at industrial scale. #Capitalism #Entrepreneurship #Business #Investing #IPO #PrivateMarkets #BurnRate #Fundraising #Valuation #ArtificialIntelligence #Economics #FutureOfWork #WeWork #StartupLife #TechIndustry #Disruption #NarrativeEconomy

If you're a content creator with a product/service idea, let me tell you why this news is important. The unbundling of venture capital is entering its final stage: the transformation of investment firms from financial institutions into specialized media companies with a balance sheet. The hiring of creator-investors like Claire Zau by multi-billion-dollar funds is a structural response to a fundamental shift in how deal flow is secured. Historically, founders chased VCs for capital. In a market saturated with dry powder, capital has become a commodity, reversing the leverage. High-quality founders now choose investors based on their ability to amplify a company's narrative. A partner with a native distribution channel of hundreds of thousands of operators offers an immediate, unfair advantage in customer acquisition and talent recruitment that money cannot buy. The traditional prestige of a heritage VC firm name is no longer sufficient to secure highly competitive allocations. Founders, particularly in fast-moving sectors like AI, increasingly optimize for individual alignment, authentic connection, and modern media literacy. Hiring partners who possess independent, platform-native credibility is a defensive strategy for legacy firms to prevent losing early-stage deals to solo capitalists and emergent, media-first micro-funds. This evolution goes beyond marketing. Creator-investors use short-form content and newsletters as a real-time validation mechanism. The engagement metrics, audience feedback loops, and direct community interactions act as a decentralized, continuous source of market research, surfacing micro-trends and identifying exceptional talent long before traditional institutional databases flag them.

Something happened in venture capital today that would have been laughed out of the room five years ago. Lightspeed, a VC firm with $40B under management just made the most unexpected hire in their history: a creator with 300K followers talking about venture deals on Instagram and TikTok. Claire Zau is Lightspeed's newest partner. And before her, they hired Josh Machiz as CMO, the man who turned Nasdaq into a social media powerhouse with 3.5M followers and made Redpoint the most-followed VC firm on TikTok. The list of new media VCs will only keep growing, other well-known ones: Jack Altman → Benchmark Michael Mignano → Union Square Ventures Harry Stebbings → 20VC Mario Gabriele → Hummingbird Ventures Nichole Wischoff → built a fund through social media Audience, taste, and credibility is everything. PS: Join the weekly EverythingStartups newsletter for more on where early-stage capital is flowing + tech insights across USA, Europe, and Israel: https://lnkd.in/dyNtt9s4

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐬. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠. Founders spend weeks perfecting their pitch, building the model, and preparing the data room. Then they send the deck to 80 investors on a spreadsheet they found online and wonder why they're getting ghosted. Here's what's actually happening. You're pitching a consumer fintech to a fund that only does enterprise SaaS. You're approaching a growth-stage firm with a seed-stage company. You're emailing a partner whose last three investments were in climate tech with a healthtech deck. You're targeting funds that just deployed their last vintage and won't write checks for 18 months. None of this is visible from the outside. It requires research that most founders either don't do or don't know how to do. The founders we work with build their investor list differently. Start with thesis alignment. What has this fund publicly said they invest in? Read their blog posts, listen to their podcast appearances, study their recent investments. If your company doesn't fit their stated thesis, you're wasting both your time and theirs. Filter by stage and check size. A fund with a $500M AUM writing $10M to $20M checks is not the right partner for a $2M seed round. Match your round size to the fund's sweet spot. Map the decision-maker. Sending a deck to a fund's info email is a dead end. Identify the specific partner whose background and investment history align with your space. A warm introduction to the right partner is worth more than 50 cold emails to the wrong ones. Timeline matters. Funds have deployment cycles. A fund that just closed a new vintage is actively writing checks. A fund that deployed 80% of its current vehicle is not. We help founders build targeted investor lists as part of our venture advisory work. The difference between a scattered approach and a focused one is usually the difference between a 12-month fundraise and a 4-month one. #Fundraising #InvestorTargeting #VentureAdvisory #FounderAdvice #VirtusOrbis

I have now been investing in early stage technology companies for over 15 years and have been investing MetaProp for ten years. Having good relationships with other venture capitalists and angel investors is a very important component of the job. Many of our most successful investments to date have been sourced as a direct result of our relationships to other venture capital funds. Some of our VC friends have even introduced us to people who have invested in our funds. So, how does one cultivate and nurture these relationships over years and decades? The inconvenient truth is that these bonds are usually forged over failed shared portfolio companies, or shared portfolio companies that made it back from the brink of disaster. When things are going well with a startup, most good VCs are not overly involved. That means fewer points of communication with the entrepreneur and even fewer conversations with the other VCs on the cap table. When the business starts moving sideways, that's when VCs tend to get to work. This is when the relationships strengthen. When the late night fire drills happen, you learn pretty quickly which investors you want to partner with again, and which ones you want to avoid. I am grateful to have so many VCs over the years that have rolled up their sleeves and helped out immensely on shared portfolio companies. If you are just starting out as an investor, backing a failed business really stinks but if you can strengthen a few relationships in the process it will help you get that intro to back the next big Unicorn! #VC #RealAssets #Proptech

Angel or VC, which comes first? It's one of the most common questions we hear from founders. And honestly? There's no single right answer. Here's what we actually see in practice: 🌱 The pre-VC founder: building early, not yet ready for institutional capital. Angels give them the runway, the introductions, and the credibility to get to a point where VCs will take the meeting. 📈 The VC-backed founder topping up: already raised institutional money but needs bridge capital, a strategic angel, or a specific operator in their corner. Angels fill gaps that VCs don't, whether that's sector expertise, a warm intro, or simply flexible terms. 🤝 The founder raising both simultaneously: running a round with angels and VCs at the same table. More complex to manage, but when it works, you get the best of both. Smart money, fast money, and a cap table that opens doors. All three work. What matters is knowing which one fits your stage, your business, and your timeline. The mistake we see most often? Founders who default to chasing VC too early, before the metrics are there, before the story is tight, before the relationships exist. If you're figuring out which path makes sense for you right now, come and have the conversation in person. We're hosting a social mixer as part of London VC Week! Investors, founders, and everyone in between, in one room. No pitching. No pressure. Just the right people. 👉 https://luma.com/sp7ydoiq

Founders Fund has officially closed the $6 billion growth fund that TechCrunch reported on back in March (saying it was nearly closed). The firm’s senior management and employees (including Peter Thiel) supplied $1.5 billion of the total. https://lnkd.in/dnUTgNyP

Friday Post This one is left field but relevant. Does anyone else get the feeling we are living in an obviously contrived market? (cough, fake, cough, vague, cough, empty, cough, soulless?) Well, I do. The business culture feels odd. There is simultaneously, and seemingly, innovation, change, product launch, feature announcement, mergers, acquisitions, restructures, joint ventures, ground breakings, and.......nothing really getting actually BETTER for our clients, like really better? I have a theory. You won't like it. Its gross, and lots of other things, but its Friday so you get to read it and I get to not look at LinkedIn for 2 days :) Here goes: In 2019 a simple (gemini) search (that's so funny to me) tells us: "In 2019, US venture capital firms raised a total of $46.3 billion across 259 vehicles, representing the second-highest annual total in the decade preceding that year, despite a decline from 2018 levels. While fundraising was lower than 2018, the median fund size grew to $78.5 million, highlighting a trend toward larger funds." Cool. Remember how great business was then? I mean really solid. Fast forward: "As of early 2026, the US venture capital landscape is experiencing a rapid rebound, with over $80 billion in new capital raised in Q1 alone, positioning 2026 to potentially be the strongest fundraising year since 2021. A massive pipeline of over $160 billion in additional capital is actively being raised, with AI mega-deals driving the majority of investment. Available "Dry Powder": The total value of the US venture ecosystem reached a record $9.4 trillion by March 31, 2026, with AI-related companies dominating at roughly $5.8 trillion." We don't have the time and I don't have the energy to discuss where all this "liquidity" came from......believe me we don't have the time. Sufficive to say, there is a metric sh*t ton of cash in the market right now. Good right? No, it sucks. Here is why: When companies raise capital funds they MUST shift from focusing on clients to focusing on returns. The mandates shift, they don't have a choice. You went from building and working for BETTER to building and working for BIGGER. While bigger is not always a negative corollary it is OFTEN. Combine this reality with the study we have all read that shows companies crossing a certain revenue mark begin to behave more psychopathic (again, bad for clients, outcomes, relationships....). Bottom line, when there is 9.4 trillion in funding looking for reliable rates of return....the client (which by the way....is literally your CLIENTS and ALL of US) are NOT the focus. This is why its weird. According to me. At least, some of why its weird. The impending AI (rise of the machines) apocalypse is also not super fun. Anyway, happy Friday! :)

With scaling and leading two corporate venture funds, I’ve learned there’s a delicate balance in venture that doesn't get talked about enough: how to support founders without overstepping. Investors are invited into some of the most intense moments of a company’s life — fundraising pressure, hiring challenges, tough trade-offs on burn, product direction, or timing. But the reality is most founders are almost always closer to the truth than we are. They're in the trenches. They feel the signals before anyone else does. That’s why I believe in a “founders first” mindset, not just in theory, but in practice. It means listening before advising, asking questions before making recommendations, and trusting founders to navigate complexity, even when the path looks uncertain. And when support is needed, it often looks quieter than people expect. Sometimes it’s making a timely introduction. Or sharing perspective from another founder who has been through something similar. Sometimes it’s simply reinforcing confidence when decisions feel heavy. The best investor-founder relationships aren't built on control. They’re built on alignment. And alignment doesn't come from telling founders what to do. It comes from helping them think more clearly about what matters most.

Friday Post This one is left field but relevant. Does anyone else get the feeling we are living in an obviously contrived market? (cough, fake, cough, vague, cough, empty, cough, soulless?) Well, I do. The business culture feels odd. There is simultaneously, and seemingly, innovation, change, product launch, feature announcement, mergers, acquisitions, restructures, joint ventures, ground breakings, and.......nothing really getting actually BETTER for our clients, like really better? I have a theory. You won't like it. Its gross, and lots of other things, but its Friday so you get to read it and I get to not look at LinkedIn for 2 days :) Here goes: In 2019 a simple (gemini) search (that's so funny to me) tells us: "In 2019, US venture capital firms raised a total of $46.3 billion across 259 vehicles, representing the second-highest annual total in the decade preceding that year, despite a decline from 2018 levels. While fundraising was lower than 2018, the median fund size grew to $78.5 million, highlighting a trend toward larger funds." Cool. Remember how great business was then? I mean really solid. Fast forward: "As of early 2026, the US venture capital landscape is experiencing a rapid rebound, with over $80 billion in new capital raised in Q1 alone, positioning 2026 to potentially be the strongest fundraising year since 2021. A massive pipeline of over $160 billion in additional capital is actively being raised, with AI mega-deals driving the majority of investment. Available "Dry Powder": The total value of the US venture ecosystem reached a record $9.4 trillion by March 31, 2026, with AI-related companies dominating at roughly $5.8 trillion." We don't have the time and I don't have the energy to discuss where all this "liquidity" came from......believe me we don't have the time. Sufficive to say, there is a metric sh*t ton of cash in the market right now. Good right? No, it sucks. Here is why: When companies raise capital funds they MUST shift from focusing on clients to focusing on returns. The mandates shift, they don't have a choice. You went from building and working for BETTER... For more https://lnkd.in/etU4BN4B