venture capital

WTF VC by Slow VC’s Sam Lessin - great assessment of what’s going on in early 2025.

Winning market share

As the amount of capital raised by venture capital firms nearly 8x’d between 2013 and 2022, the number of new startups funded didn’t even double.

When you take total VC dollars raised, divided by the number of new companies, you’ll see the average startup today has 5x more VC capital available than its counterpart did in 2013.

Rather than fund more ideas or more types of founders, most VCs simply ended up giving more dollars to more of the same founders and ideas they’d always back.

Great businesses aren’t good enough to drive the kinds of returns needed to generate the kinds of returns mega funds demand. As more capital was consumed, more risk was layered on to push from a great outcome to a mega-fund returning outcome.

Today, the fuel for startups and the oxygen for funds are being cut significantly. There is less available capital and appetite for burn