O'Driscoll: Founders in competitive markets should accept aggressive funding offers
Rory O'Driscoll · OpenAI's Multi-Billion Deal with AMD & Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Oct 9, 2025 · at 1:16:46
Rory O'Driscoll, General Partner at Scale Venture Partners, discusses whether founders should accept large, high-valuation funding rounds intended to kingmake their startups.
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“Pragmatically in this market, I think you err on the side. If you have something that's working, And you, even if you don't know where you're going to put the money, if it's on attractive terms, you probably err on the side of taking it. Because if it, if you're in a reasonably big market, you're going to have to grow and you're going to, it's going to take capital. So I think you err on the side of aggression precisely because everyone, because you have to play the, you have to do the game theory. It's not just what do you think, but what are they going to do where they is your competitor, right? And you can say you're going to be careful and slow and rational, but if they're not Careful, slow, and rational, then you just end up outclassed.”
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