"VCs care about one thing only...defensibility / moats so don't bother pitching anything else"
I think Jenny is probably right that VCs are keener to understand your startup's defensibility today than at any point in the past. Of course what is actually defensible (particularly in software!) is a picture that changes seemingly every month.
But of course there are other company types that lend themselves to greater moats - physical products come to mind.
And our data shows that VCs are increasingly willing to bet on real world things, built in atoms. Things like energy, medical devices, biotech, and hardware.
Hardware (led by a strong robotics push) has seen particularly strong ramp up in the past few years, moving from 9% of all startup funding in 2023 to 15% in 2025 and a whooping 23% to start 2026.
Time to build (in atoms)!
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