Wischoff: VC partners write small seed checks to minimize personal reputational risk
Nichole Wischoff · Building Durable Funds in the Post-Boom Era | Nichole Wischoff on TBPN · Apr 26, 2025 · at 18:31
Nichole Wischoff (Founder, Wischoff Ventures) explains why institutional LPs are hesitant to back partners spinning out from established venture firms.
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“They're so active in seed because the individual investors are like, well, hey, if we take thirty million and divide that out by a ton of two, three million dollar checks, if we lose a few, it's not such a blow to the reputation of that, you know, partner at the firm versus taking a thirty million dollar check and putting it into one company and saying like, hey, like I'm a pretty good picker if that works out. And so I think it's made it really, really hard to underwrite these guys because they've just done whatever they wanted and candidly haven't taken a lot of risk or maybe been able to.”
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