An LPs Guide to Venture Funds (Part 1) - The Unbundling and a Framework

Ours is a livelihood dependent on successfully being able to predict the future. And in a world so dominated by fat tails, randomness and optionality, this is a very hard thing to do.

Specialisation, solo-GPs, a separation of advice, money, and control, these are all traits of an unbundling industry.

Speaking to these guys, a common sentiment that’s come through is that the good founders want to deal with individuals. Julian Shapiro put it well the other day: You can carry a hero brand within a firm (such as Chris Dixon in a16z crypto), or you can carry a firm on your hero brand.

This evolution includes the fact that know-how is easy to come by, the importance of personal branding , better tooling , an influx of capital and talent to private markets,

Recall that the value of money had an impact on which factors were important. In a bull market, most companies get markups, but the best get marked up more. This is why we’ve seen GPs with distribution, networks, and more diversified portfolios do well in recent years. These are the collaborative, good-karma guys who everyone likes at their cap tab... See more

Some may heavily weight the ability to co-invest or join on SPVs. Certain funds will sell their fund-of-funds product as subservient to their co-investment strategy.

The idea of a media-first investment firm is pretty new. Not many people have thought about what it’ll look like in five or ten years. It’s a really powerful thing - controlling a story.

A GP fundamentally needs to do eight things:

• Source companies to invest in.


• Pick companies which outperform.


• Win access to those companies.


• Value a company well and enter at an appropriate valuation


• Construct a portfolio of these companies sized to maximise LP reward and minimise LP risk.


• King-make their portfolio companies.


• Raise capital for subse

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When money is worth little, it’s easier to get it from LPs, and tougher to sell it to founders.