Opendoor co-founder and Khosla Ventures MD Keith Rabois reflects on lessons from PayPal, Square, and Opendoor, sharing why startups often begin as cults, how he scouts extraordinary talent, and the frameworks he’s developed to simplify complex problems into actionable advice..
12-Month Performance of 2010–2020 Vintage VC Funds
David Clark, CIO at VenCap International, is back with more great data on VC performance. His latest analysis of 119 funds from 2010–2020 shows an aggregate +11.5% gain over the past year, even as 42% of funds lost value and the median return was just 2.9%. Once again, a handful of outlier funds and companies drove nearly all the returns.
What Investors Get Wrong about Asset Allocation, the Past, Present & Future of Venture Capital
Daniel Feder, CFA, Senior Managing Director of Investments at the University of Michigan, shares why investors must lean into uncertainty to generate real returns. He discusses Michigan’s unique diligence approach, portfolio math, and why flexible capital structures often beat the standard 2/20 model.
How to Manage $15 Billion with Sacramento County’s Pension Fund
Brian Miller, CIO at Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System, shares how he builds a $6B public-equity portfolio within a $15B plan. He discusses manager sizing and selection, the role of absolute-return strategies as true diversifiers, and lessons from 16 years at Tukman Grossman Capital Management.
Platform Shifts, AI & The Future of Consumer Investing
Mercedes Bent, Venture Partner at Lightspeed and Co-Founder of Premise, talks about what it takes to stand out in today’s crowded VC landscape, why non-consensus bets matter, how intuition helps spot exceptional founders, and where she sees opportunity in consumer tech and AI.
Alex Edelson’s Slipstream is a fund of funds that focuses on firms that are “difficult to find, evaluate and access.” In this episode, Alex unpacks his strategy of investing in funds he believes can outperform, how to raise capital as an LP, and how to remain competitive against LPs investing in more established firms.
With support from our sponsor Sydecar
Sydecar automates key back office tasks, like LP onboarding, KYC, and reporting, so managers can stay focused on raising capital, building portfolios, and earning LP trust.
Featuring Sapphire Partners
NEW ANALYSIS
Who Is Actually Leading Early-Stage Rounds? Here Is What the Data Tells Us
Mega-funds are arriving earlier than ever, but the leaderboards of who is leading rounds at Seed and Series A tell a nuanced story. We’ve got the top 10 players in ranked charts for both Seed and Series A, plus a full analysis on the early-stage market.
Nate Leung joined Taiki Chung to share a candid look into LP land—and how he approaches partnership at Sapphire Partners. Nate shares that being an LP isn’t just about financial returns. It’s about backing managers in ways that strengthen the ecosystem and the communities our capital ultimately serves.
How to Not Get Fired When Changing Your VC Strategy
On the latest episode of Superclusters, Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson of Sapphire Partners joined a powerful lineup of GPs, Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures), Stephanie Palmeri (NextView Ventures), Suraj Mehta (Humanrace Capital), and Kevin Novak (Rackhouse Venture Capital), for a new podcast format called El Pack to talk about what’s changing in venture and what remains timeless.
The report shows a market still recalibrating. Median IRR for 2023 funds sits at -1.3%, DPI for 2021–2023 remains near zero, while top-quartile 2017–2019 vintages are delivering 3.4x–6.6x TVPI. The data highlights the importance of pacing, context, and long-term strategy for both LPs and emerging managers.
In Q2, venture funds showed fresh momentum: distributions to LPs increased across 2017–2023 vintages, including first-time DPI from a share of 2019 funds. Recent cohorts are pacing ahead of historical norms, median TVPI and IRRs trended upward, average LP check sizes grew, and dry powder levels continued to decline.
OpenAI Releases First-of-Kind Study Revealing How People are Using ChatGPT for Everyday Tasks
OpenAI published a landmark internal study of 1.5 million ChatGPT conversations, showing who’s using it and how. Among the findings: non-work usage now dominates, the gender gap among users has narrowed, and core use cases cluster around practical guidance, writing help, and information seeking.
The Trump administration’s plan to introduce a $100,000 fee on new H1-B visas is drawing attention in venture circles. Some see higher costs as a potential hurdle for startups and immigrant founders, while others note that startups use relatively few H1-Bs and often for critical hires. The broader impact on innovation and talent flows remains uncertain.
Venture Firm Touring Capital Decided to Use AI to Scout Deals. It Wasn’t All Smooth Sailing.
The firm set out to supercharge the number of deals it reviews with an AI tool, but partners clashed over how much of the investment process should be automated versus left to human judgment. They ultimately settled on a hybrid approach, AI for screening, with personal outreach when connections exist.
Thanks for reading OpenLP! We’d love your input to help shape future editions. What’s working well? What’s missing? Your feedback will help us make this newsletter more relevant and insightful for the LP and venture community.
Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”). Information provided reflects Sapphires’ views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. No assumptions should be made that any investment listed above were or will be profitable. Various content and views contained within this article represent those of third party guests, which do not necessarily reflect the views of Sapphire. Such views are subject to change at any point and do not in any way represent official statements by Sapphire.Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in any statement made. Nothing contained in this article may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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