Venture-Backed Founders Are Signing Up for a Decade

Venture-backed founders—it's going to take a decade. Maybe more.

Sometimes VC fundraising is a speed-run: 13% of companies who raised Series C were under 4 years old when they did so.

Sometimes there are long, grinding gaps: 7% of Series C companies were over 9 years old.

Data below is for rounds raised in the last 18 months, but the patterns have held true for years.

There are companies that start hot and then stall out. There are others who start slowly and then catch fire 5 years in. But most face a period of wandering in the wilderness. As Paul Graham said of startups, "The surest route to success is to be the cockroach of the corporate world".

A couple interesting trends:

1. It's now taking longer. The data below is only priced rounds and the explosion of pre-seed activity means companies may not start their priced equity journey until a few years in.

2. This is influenced by the closed IPO market, of course. But the expansion of private capital into late-stage companies means that many scale-ups that would have naturally turned towards the public market may not feel the need to IPO quickly.

3. Not everyone builds for a public exit. Lots of great outcomes through M&A, etc along the way.

Respect to the founders out there betting their valuable time on an uncertain world 🙏

#startups #founders #venturecapital