Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, discusses findings from her original 2013 research into billion-dollar startups.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lee: VC Board Member Withheld Tough Feedback to Protect LP Fundraise
“I called the board member, and I was like, hey, what's your feeling about how this, like, what kind of coaching are you giving the team about how things are going? It feels like things are off, and we are not doing the things we should be doing. And he was lik…”
Prediction Held up
Lee: Series A valuations will reset to $20M-$40M pre-money
“Well, Series A's we're going to be back to eight to twelve million dollars, and Series A valuations will be back to 20 to 35, 40 pre. And B's will be back to a hundred pre, instead of four or 500 pre.”
Insight
Lee: Mega-funds give junior VCs $2M-$4M checkbooks as training wheels
“There's a lot of, like, basically, as these funds got bigger, they had more fee income. And so they could feed more mouths. And they would hire younger people and say, you have a checkbook. Like, you don't have a big checkbook like I have. Like, you know, the …”
Opinion
Lee: Founders Raising in 2022 Market Will Face VC Bottom Fishers
“And so, like, if you raise now, if you can avoid it, you're gonna be getting a lot of bottom fissures.”
Opinion
Lee: VCs are privately stressed over portfolio companies with unsustainable valuations
“A lot of people are sitting on super overvalued investments. And depending on what price they paid and what's in their portfolio, they are super stressed out right now because they don't see a path for their portfolio companies or a chunk of their portfolio co…”
Disclosure
Lee: Seed founders pitch $6M rounds but quickly reduce asks to $3M
“Right now we're seeing a lot of seed extensions. We're seeing a lot of seed founders who are sending us decks that have a six million dollar seed raise in them. And I'll email the founder and be like, Hey, this looks really interesting. Are you still thinking …”