Venture Funds: Should You Collect One?

That will be VC’s biggest fundraising ask in 2023.

One of them The biggest trend in venture capital over the past few years has been for early-stage companies to raise “opportunity” funds to make a series of investments in their most successful bets. But amid a crowdfunding market that has impacted both VCs and startups, a muted exit environment and a slowdown in post-stage funding, will that trend continue?

Earlier this week, TechCrunch first reported that Lux Capital was raising money. The standout firm will combine its venture funding and early and late stage strategies into a single vehicle focused primarily on early stage deal creation. This comes just a few weeks after Y Combinator announced that it was pulling back from its late-stage strategy.

Initially, in I thought these were just the first few indicators that 2023 would be the year the hedge fund trend died, but of course it’s not that simple.

I think venture funding will be a more controversial question for companies looking to raise money this year. I think we’ll see a lot less of them, but there will still be companies that raise them for good reason. Khosla Ventures and Canaan seem to be among them: In January, Khosla began raising money for new funds, including an opportunity fund, and on Thursday Canaan said it raised $850 million in two funds, a major early-stage fund and a late-stage strategy, my colleague Connie Lozios reports.