The latest perspectives from OpenLP, a resource for the venture community to hear from a diverse group of LP and GP voices.
LP & GP Voices
Investing in Top Emerging Managers with Jamie Rhode
By David Weisburd
Jamie Rhode, Partner at Screendoor, sits down with David Weisburd, Host of the 10X Capital Podcast, to discuss Screendoor’s strategy of backing top emerging managers, friction points between LPs and emerging managers, leveraging insights from GPs and LPs in manager selection and how to diligence a first time fund.
How do you set yourself apart as a GP? Benedikt Langer, General Manager at The Sutton Firm, shares a pathway to differentiation nobody else seems to be talking about: the language you form around your fund.
U.S. VC funds saw a dramatic 60% decline year-on-year from 2022 to 2023. Samir Kaji, CEO at Allocate, shares a data-driven analysis on the state and future outlook of VC, spotlighting its impact on sectors like SaaS and AI.
Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner at Theory Ventures, explores the "Seedpocalypse" or "Series A Crunch" that began in 2012, marking a daunting phase for startups facing a major imbalance in the venture capital cycle, especially when raising a Series A round.
Meghan Reynolds, Partner at Altimeter, shares a slide on fundraising that struck a chord with VC LPs. GPs, if you're finding fundraising challenging, this simple equation lays it out. Complexity is frequently misjudged by GPs, yet LPs can spot it instantly.
StepStone Group leverages two-plus decades’ worth of data from its proprietary database to break down historical return attribution and determine to what extent the Vintage Year Power Law has shaped venture capital’s performance.
The Grand Reset: VCs and LPs Are Starting To Internalize Reality
By Frank Rotman
The vast majority of the high-flying ZIRP-era startups are unlikely to deliver great financial outcomes for their investors and employees. QED Investors' Frank Rotman shares how the ecosystem is adapting.
Shedding Light on Endowment Investing with University of Chicago's Joanna Rupp
By Nick Chirls & Beezer Clarkson
Joanna Rupp, Managing Director of Private Equity at the University of Chicago, sits down with Origins podcast hosts Nick & Beezer to discuss the often opaque world of endowments, including what separates an endowment from a foundation, how they consider small funds v. big funds and the fallout from an avalanche of capital being thrown at VCs.
Beezer Clarkson on How to Get a “Yes” from Investors, Advice to Young VCs, Fund Mission vs. Returns, and What Diversity Means in Venture
By Michael Eisenberg
Beezer pulls back the curtain to dive deep into the LP-GP relationship with Michael Eisenberg on the latest Invested podcast by Aleph, covering what she looks for in a pitch, how LPs build portfolios and how the returns differ, what raises a red flag in fund evaluation and more.
AI Is Masking the Downturn...FirstMark in the VC Directory...Emerging Managers Keep the Faith
By Madeline Renbarger
With LPs just now seeing early results from VCs’ boom-time vintages, smaller funds that haven’t returned capital to their investors face a tough road ahead. Sapphire Partners' Beezer Clarkson recently shared her perspective with Newcomer on the downturn in VC funding.
13% of VC Firms Aren’t Planning to Raise Another Fund
By Rosie Bradbury
Thirteen percent of venture GPs don’t plan to raise another fund as the LP pullback spoils fundraising efforts, according to PitchBook’s semiannual VC Tech Survey. That’s double the rate in H1 2023, when 6% said they had no plans to raise another fund.
Artificial Intelligence is Coming for Venture Firms. VCs Predict it Could Reduce Head Count by More Than 50%
By Ben Bergman
Silicon Valley has been enraptured by artificial intelligence for the past two years, with VCs racing to fund all manner of AI startups. Now, AI is changing venture capital itself, making what was already a hard field for young associates to break into that much more difficult and influencing how early-stage startups are funded.
Silicon Valley Leaders are Once Again Declaring ‘DEI’ Bad and ‘Meritocracy’ Good — but They’re Wrong
By Dominic-Madori Davis & Kyle Wiggers
Who’s afraid of the Big Bad DEI? The acronym is near-poisonous now — a word that creates almost instant tension between those who embrace it and those who want it dead.
Leopold Aschenbrenner's "Situational Awareness": AI From Now to 2034
By Mike Allen
Leopold Aschenbrenner, formerly of OpenAI's Superalignment team, now founder of an investment firm focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI) — shares an essay putting a long lens on AI's future, revealing a useful, eye-opening synthesis of high-level Silicon Valley conversations.
Launched in 2012, Sapphire Partners is a Limited Partner seeking to invest in elite early-stage venture capital funds, across the U.S., Europe, and Israel.
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