Lemkin: Small emerging fund returns are irrelevant to large endowments
Jason Lemkin · Cursor Acquired for $60BN | Anthropic Hits $1TRN in Secondary Markets & Figma, Adobe, Canva Dead? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Apr 23, 2026 · at 33:21
Jason Lemkin, venture investor and founder of SaaStr, explains how fund sizing constraints prevent large institutional Limited Partners from benefiting materially from small emerging VC funds.
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“If I can put 5,000,008, ten million into an emerging GP, okay, and they don't expand into a multi-billion dollar fund, it's, it is irrelevant to a large endowment, unless you've got a little chunk of guys that are just doing emerging managers, and they'll put in the work, or they'll put in the time, or you're a smaller LP, and as the numbers get bigger, it will just, it just doesn't matter making 10 X on your Neo if it's irrelevant to, Your portfolio, right? It's irrelevant.”
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