Why Venture Capital Is Rediscovering Physical Products
For most of the past decade, the prevailing wisdom in venture capital was remarkably consistent.
For most of the past decade, the prevailing wisdom in venture capital was remarkably consistent.
For most founders, Series A is the first major institutional moment.
For a good number of years the venture capital world seemingly was primarily focused on finding the next billion dollar company
For decades a 70+ square mile corridor in Northern California was the undisputed center of technological gravity. Today that core is still there, but the inherent pull unique to the location itself has changed in numerous ways.
The story of American tech in the 2020s isn’t a tale of Silicon Valley’s collapse. It’s something more subtle and interesting in that it is characterized by diffusion.
The first quarter of 2026 has officially closed and the data paints a picture of a venture capital landscape that is both maturing and aggressively pivoting toward long-term profitability. After the volatility of the early 2020s, Q1 2026 has emerged as a period of what might be termed disciplined exuberance. Total funding reached $98.5 billion globally across more than 7,800 deals.
A brief synopsis of venture capital events during the second quarter of 2024.
This period saw a rather significant shift in stability in certain sectors across all global regions along with a seemingly cautious optimism amongst those involved in pertinent activities.
Total investment rose slightly during this period compared to the previous quarter in 2023. This number was still significantly below that generated in 2021 and the early part of 2022. The trend seen was certainly one characterized by an air of caution and influenced by fewer exits along with increasing interest rates.
Investors have seemingly chosen to focus more on fundamentals as 2023 comes to a close. A rather significant decline was seen as compared to previous quarters, and the shift appears to be rather uniform across most of the sectors that we are involved with.
The global numbers are in and the total amount raised by companies amounted to a bit over $73 billion. This is down from the $85 billion that organizations put together during Q3 of the previous year, but the amount is up a bit from quarter two of 2023. Although the slight uptick may be welcome by many, it’s still important to note that the trend remains level if not still on a slight decline given the cash outlays viewed during the past year and a half.
The tallied marks for the second quarter of 2023 are in and, as expected, the amount of cash acquired by companies seeking assistance continues to follow the downward path. Approximately $65 billion was deposited in the coffers of about 6000 startups during this period which represents a considerable departure from Q2 of 2022 where 9500 organizations collected a total of $125 billion.
Numbers have arrived for the most recent quarter and, to little surprise, overall Q1 2023 venture funding results have continued to follow a downward trend that started during the first quarter of 2022. Although two large exchanges occurred in the forms of OpenAi and Stripe, these were certainly the exception as drops were seen across the board including in the early-stage realm which has been somewhat resistant to general course inclinations.
The numbers are in for 2022 venture funding activities and, to little surprise, there was a bit of a drop-off from the record amounts distributed in the previous year. Approximately $450 billion were taken in by various entities across the globe in 2022 while the overall figure garnered in 2021 tallied about $680 billion. This is certainly a rather precipitous drop by any scale.