Navigating the Venture Capital Landscape

This chapter examines the significant hurdles emerging venture capital managers face in a declining fundraising environment, particularly highlighting the drastic drop in capital from 2021 to 2024. It explores the implications of these challenges on the startup ecosystem and the competitive dynamics that new managers encounter against established players.

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Today’s show: Alex moderates a TWIST VC Roundtable with Jason, Paige Doherty (Behind Genius), and Altimeter’s Megan Reynolds about the state of early-stage venture capital. They break down the rise of secondary markets as a key liquidity path for VCs, analyze the resurgence in M&A activity from major players like Meta, Databricks, and OpenAI, and question whether inflated ARR figures from YC startups are distorting valuations. Jason shares his year-zero investment thesis and offers tactical advice on secondary structuring and identifying high-quality revenue. Whether you're raising, investing, or building, this episode delivers essential insights into the evolving early-stage landscape.

Timestamps:

(0:00) Episode Teaser(1:28) Meet our panelists!(2:37) Will secondaries replace traditional M&A?(10:10) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups(14:28) Has M&A actually bounced back?(20:06) Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.(25:35) Secondary market advice, just for founders(30:10) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out today.(32:49) Why is it so hard for emerging managers to raise funds?

(38:28) Seed funds: the math is not mathing(52:07) Why early investors become “collateral damage”(56:31) The importance of revenue quality in early-stage startups(1:06:43) Quick Fire Question Round!

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Links from episode:

Altimeter: https://www.altimeter.com/homeBehind Genius: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/

Follow Meghan:

X: https://x.com/MeghanKReynolds

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghankreynolds/

Follow Paige:X: https://x.com/paigefinnn

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigedoherty/

Follow Alex:

X: https://x.com/alex