The Ledger
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Zullo: VC board governance degraded into 'patty cake' over founder NPS scores
“We really moved away from that over the course of the last five, 10 years, because, like, just like you were talking about, like, there's a lot of incentive to sell sell a founder, a lot of incentive to be all about the NPS score, and everyone's trying to, you…”
Zullo: Secondary offers will reduce peer fund returns from 7x to 1x
“I've definitely heard some secondary offers on some big, big companies that I know that are going to turn Some of our peers from seven X funds to one X funds.”
Rick Zullo says he hasn't taken a startup pitch in eight years
“I haven't taken a pitch in eight years because I think pitching is bullshit because I think it's all about sales, salesmanship and rather than actually like me understanding your understanding of a company.”
Rick Zullo: Asset management is a better business than traditional venture
“The asset management business is a better business than the venture business. You know, fees are guaranteed. Carry isn't.”
Zullo: Downturn will force founders to listen to boards or be fired
“And I think as you go and see a bunch of bridge rounds, down rounds, and all this other stuff that's going to happen in the next couple years, like, The reality is founders are going to have to listen a lot more to their board and because of the board doesn't …”
Zullo: Venture market will see more startup busts than bridge rounds
“I think there's gonna be more busts than down rounds and bridges.”
Zullo: Mega funds have no financial incentive to salvage struggling startups
“The salvage value and loss management really doesn't matter at those funds.”
Zullo: Top $2B+ funds won't invest in non-decacorn, lukewarm startups
“If it's not super hot or not going to be a deco core company, my guess is, you know, most of those top 10 venture firms that are over two billion are not going to be knocking on your door.”
Zullo: Institutional LP capital for emerging VC managers has largely dried up
“All the emerging managers that have come to the game over the last couple of years, like we were all fighting for so much capital with each other. Like a lot of those doors are now closed.”
Zullo: Venture Investors Should Apply Discounting to AI Company Valuations
“Everything in AI, you should probably be taking some discounting on those rounds.”
Zullo: Funds Can Achieve 10x Returns Without Decacorn Exits
“There are plenty, 10 X funds that haven't ever been in a deck accord. And like, I think Roger probably has a couple of mucker has a couple, you know Tim Connors has some monster funds that like, you know, certainly some big drivers in there.”
Zullo: Many multistage VC partners will leave their firms within 3-5 years
“I think the reality is the broken incentives that venture firms have of all these zombie VCs that are Series A, Series B, Series C at multistage funds, a lot of those venture investors may not be there three to five years from now. If you are building a compan…”
Zullo: VCs misdirected founders by promising perpetual capital availability
“And I think a big part of this is the investor steering in the wrong direction and saying that money is going to be there.”
Zullo: VCs and Founders Lost Financial Acumen Chasing Revenue Multiples
“Founders and investors, both we've kind of slipped away from financial acumen as investors, where it just became really focused on revenue multiples.”
Zullo: Many Consumer and FinTech Startups Died Cutting Back Growth
“I can point to a ton of consumer companies, a ton of FinTech companies that move the opposite direction that, you know, despite You know, trying to cut back their growth, you know, went through the floor and those companies are largely dead right now.”
Rick Zullo: No correlation between seed fundraising skill and business success
“We just haven't seen a lot of correlation between the folks who are like really great at raising money at the seed stage and the folks who are really great at building a business and the people who are really great at building a business, they get pretty good …”
Zullo: Venture capital will transition to asset management model
“But I think it's splintering off of professionalization of turning into asset management is really going to happen in venture in the next couple of years.”
Zullo: Founders want 'personal trainer' board members like Roger Ehrenberg
“Founders, they want a personal trainer. They don't, you know, they want someone who's going to make them better. And yeah, I think there's folks like Roger Ehrenberg are great personal trainer.”
Zullo: Missing Archer Aviation showed the risk of rigid thesis investing
“Honestly, I'm incredibly thesis driven, and I've missed a lot of amazing companies because of that. I told the story around investing in the guys from Vetteri, and then, like, they started a public company in our office, and we did invest. You know, that compa…”