Venture capital, for all its ability to drive innovation, is mismatched with many of the technologies civilization needs most: - Building a nuclear reactor costs billions and takes over a decade. - Bringing a new cancer drug to market requires $1-2 billion over ten to fifteen years, with a 90% failure rate. - An estimated 80% of energy startups fail because funding dries up during the scaling phase. Meanwhile, the biggest VC firms are pouring record funding into AI, crypto or whatever the latest thing is. I am not pointing fingers - the time horizons for exit, incentives and LP demands drive this behaviour - but we are leaving critical opportunities to drive human progress underfunded. A growing body of research proposes three roles for the state to help bridge this gap: First, acting as a limited partner for emerging fund managers, where studies show moving public LP activity earlier produces the same productivity gains as doubling the allocation. Second, funding self-sustaining "venture philanthropy" vehicles that make small, broad investments in university spin-outs, accepting that over 96% will fail while the outliers more than cover losses. Third, guaranteeing junior tranches in securitized "megafunds" that pool hundreds of R&D projects into bond-like instruments accessible to pension funds and insurers, unlocking debt markets 400 times larger than VC. Read the full breakdown below from @credistick on the research that underpins these strategies.

it really says it all that in the US they're worried about the credit market's pushback against AI neocloud debt and in the UK we're worried about poundland going tits up

i thoroughly enjoyed "the commanding heights", the latest great piece of literature from oscar wilde

a really interesting new type of PE / VC / opco hybrid is going to emerge over the next 5 years that basically buys services companies and automates 98% of the work. It will be a massive industry. Think extremely well capitalised AI rollups. They'll become multi-sector because it doesn't really matter what service you're rolling up, the systems you need to build are very similar. This is basically what firms like thrive and general catalyst are already doing. Midwit PE firms that were just financially engineering upside don't have the in-house skillset to do this. You need a combination of people good at talking to instos and raising capital AND people who know how to ship excellent product very fast with AI. i think there will be a golden period of a couple of years where you can run these services companies at extremely high margin and profit, but the risk is that then the world will start to catch up and margins in every services business will erode unless they have a compelling moat eg. network effects. the upside is that the consumer will get a GREAT deal, with tons of services becoming much better, much faster AND much cheaper, all simultaneously

it is an insult to people's intelligence to produce AI slop copy for a marketing website and expect people to read it. I don't think it's ever been easier for great copywriting to shine, because so much is so terrible now.

we are entering real atlas shrugged territory in britain atm unfortunately

PSA — If you think there something is missing or incorrect in our fund ranking dataset, let me know and I will check it out for you. e.g. @alexisohanian questioned the absence @Initialized Fund I; it turned out records were missing due to the name on the filing — it's actually #8. The dataset and report have since been updated with a new version to account for this correction. Dataset: zenodo.org/records/23666194 Report: top50.joinodin.com (You can fork on GitHub or just drop me a message.)

london is the greatest city in the western world (except maybe new york) and this guy doesn't know his arse from his elbow

The Top 50 VC Firms Ranked by the long-term value created by primary investments per dollar at risk. The top 10: 1. @shv 2. @foundersfund 3. @iaventures 4. @gigafund 5. @Lowercase 6. @pelion_vp 7. @usv 8. @benchmark 9. @BessemerVP 10. @DFJvc Read more: blog.joinodin.com/p/the-top-…

It’s fitting that the late Bill Draper, a titan of VC, ended up at the top of this list, with @shv, and @TimDraper also made it into the top 10 with @DFJvc. I wouldn't be surprised if @AdamDraper joined them in future with @BoostVC. Truly a generational run.

If you're a VC ranking connoisseur, I suggest staying tuned to blog.joinodin.com this weekend.

Black woman works hard, contributes, employs people, and then has to argue with white guilty people to say that the looters are wrong. White guilt is destroying the West. We need to wake up and realise this.

Concentration grew through the latter-half of ZIRP, up until the ill-fated WeWork IPO — a high profile warning about the "growth at all costs" mentality. From 2019 to 2022, VC concentration fell as investors squeezed down into Seed, searching for a clean slate. New frontiers, and a reset on price inflation; although capital supply meant prices remained high. The market bifurcated in 2022, as smaller LPs suffered a liquidity crunch which larger LPs barely noticed. The market has quickly been dominated by scaled allocation, chasing easy narratives. As a result, 2023 to 2026 has seen successive ATHs in market concentration, as LP capital has crowded into megafunds and obvious growth opportunities. Credit to @harmonic_ai for the data.

Which processes should you look to automate, as a VC? Decision making, like scoring opportunities, should probably be the last place you look for efficiency. Start with the functions where you may otherwise be tempted to bring in an intern. Treat AI as a "cybernetic teammate", allowing you to focus more on the fundamentally human elements of venture capital. "What you decide not to automate sends a strong signal about what you believe your strengths are." Wisdom from @yoheinakajima, on this episode of Going Solo.

I notice increasing reluctance in people to use their own judgement. They are coming to rely too much on AI. They are using it as a drunkard uses a lamppost, for support rather than for illumination.

it is absolutely imperative that you set up your timeline to encounter more old art, and less new AI slop. give your attention to artists who have labored painstakingly to actualize their vision, one intentional brushstroke at a time

Helicon is building factories to industrialize composites. We raised a $16.5M seed round led by @alley_corp (@abemurray /@JonesBrannon) with participation from @joshbuckley, @chalfs, @gokulr and other top investors. We’re ramping production at our factory in Los Angeles to deliver against millions of unmanned systems that need to be built domestically. We're building a world class team. Join us. helicon.tech

omg this is a work of art

“We found that growth mindset players performed better than fixed mindset players, their mistakes did not affect their attention to the game, and they read more learning feedback than fixed mindset players. In addition, growth mindset players were more likely to actively seek difficult challenges, which is often essential to self-directed learning.” Gaming Mindsets: Implicit Theories in Serious Game Learning (2012) In the translation of competitive gaming studies over to entrepreneurship, a clear attribute of interest is the growth mindset. This refers to founders with a clear long-term objective, who recognise the journey there will involve constant learning and incremental achievments. These aren't "strivers" chasing a finite victory. They are mission driven, open-minded, and positive-sum in their ambition.

Identifying great founders is the central challenge of venture capital. Some clues can be found in the relationship between competitive gaming and entrepreneurial success, across three dimensions: - Decision making - Strategic thinking - Social dynamics