to those worrying about the hyper concentration in VC: consider that public markets are more concentrated than they’ve been in ~ever. this isn’t a VC story, it’s an everything story. …which means: - the consensus is consensusing more than it’s ever consensed - the mispricing of “nonconsensus and right” is perhaps the highest it’s ever been.
Many founders view an IPO as the ultimate goal, but going public doesn’t always deliver what founders actually want: true liquidity and diversified financial risk. In this video, I talk through why M&A is often the more practical and rewarding exit...
in less than 12h i got 3 inbound pitches for ai-first materials companies tis the season, again?

I've been thinking a lot about where I am as a VC in terms of firm building and what feels different now than when I first got started and put together some thoughts - a lot of this was inspired...

The most valuable signals are invisible. Most leaders are still optimizing for yesterday's. We're not in one economy anymore. We're in at least 10 at once. These are behavioral ecosystems. Basically invisible overlays intersecting with your brand, culture, innovation pipeline, talent...
Now that you can raise a 9-figure round pre-product, there's a non-zero chance we see a Super Bowl ad for pre-revenue AI company this year.

The sunk cost fallacy is alive & well: Varo announced it has raised ANOTHER $123.9 million. Varo posted a net loss of $91.7 million in 2025, per its just-released call report. https://t.co/iGHX1ILeL9

Sometimes founders list their startup and then wait. They assume buyers will just show up, ask questions, and magically move things forward. That almost never happens. Selling a business requires running an actual sales process. After NDAs are signed, you need to reach...
Not just talks. At SaaStr AI 2026, we're running 100s of hands-on workshops where you'll build actual AI workflows for your company. Sales. CS. Product. Ops. Leave with something you can deploy Monday. May 12-14. SF Bay. https://t.co/IsMOos9H4H
I just went through my CS Academics list, moved everyone over to other lists, then deleted it. People have no idea how much time it takes to curate great lists. Been working on them for 19 years. While doing that...

swing by the @airstreet ai meetup in: - munich 17 feb - zurich 19 feb - paris 11 mar more on: luma(dot)com/airstreet https://t.co/9ZuRL4Kk0A

“I want to sell for 10x revenue because I heard that’s the average SaaS multiple.” That mindset usually leads to disappointment. Those outsized multiples exist, but they’re rare. They’re not the norm. And anchoring on them can stop you from selling at...

I found a paper that actually quantifies the amount of money that is lost by society because NIMBYism prevents NY, SF Bay Area from building enough housing for their highly productive workers: $8,775 for every worker in America every year....
EBITDA: the most quoted metric in finance… and the least understood. So we decided to make a mini documentary on its origins… yea, seriously. In our new segment, A CFO Explains, producer Ben Hillman and I try to “adjust” our way...
Not everyone on the team really needs to be on your mission But almost all the first 50 employees do Hire pirates and romantics at least until you are truly ready to scale
Received 400 applications for Easy Residence (@Yzilabs) next season. Every season has about 20 projects, aiming for 4-6 season's per year. I find it easier to invest when the market is less hot. All the hype goes away. Real builders...
“It’s not AI that’s your competition. It’s your competitors using AI.” A real-world example from mortgage origination 👇 The frustratingly high cost to originate a mortgage (>$10K!) has persisted for decades. Except for originators on Vesta . Powerful stats from PENNYMAC earnings...
Gross margin underscores the scalability of a business model and is therefore important for determining valuation. An unfortunate truth is that in SaaS, gross margin is almost never calculated or positioned correctly for investors/buyers. If you're talking to investors or buyers,...

I’ve talked about my CEO friend who raised $100M and got stuck at $50M ARR a lot. But if I could go back to 2019 when he was at $20M, and rockets were still firing, this is exactly what I...
.@iceye_global: No IPO for now, $300M+ in 2025 rev, $3B valuation from latest funding round, wants @defis_eu & @esa to go faster in helping develop European space security network. #EuropeanSpaceConf.https://t.co/DM65XAjdCC
Getting into hot companies before they go public sounds irresistible. But the fine print is brutal: high fees, opaque structures, long lockups, and risks most investors don’t see upfront. Access isn’t the same as advantage. Sometimes the real price of “early” is...

“I’m just going to go out and test the market” is usually a mistake. What works better is preparing properly, listing at a fair valuation, and going to market with the expectation that you’re actually going to close a deal. Selling a...
The Atlantic acknowledges the core risk: California could lose not just current billionaires, but the next generation of startups entirely. Austin and Miami are waiting. https://lnkd.in/gdwZ97WW
If you happen to want me to invest in you via @saastrfund, and it's a fit ... 📨Just email. Email me everything -- all the good stuff. No need for a warm intro, or any sort of intro. They just waste...
The most impressive B2B + AI companies I'm seeing right now have 8 people doing the work of 40. That's not a flex—it's the new baseline. SaaStr AI 2026 is where you learn how they're doing it. May 12-14. SF Bay....
My friend Darren Aronofsky texted me this earlier and my draw dropped. He told me it was AI. Lux is deeply invested in AI (esp @runwayml) but had he not told me I would have thought he made the movie...
Insane data from @Mercury. Anthropic has quickly become the first model of choice for 75% of newly formed startups.

In 2020, Jeffrey Katzenberg raised $1.75 billion for Quibi. At CES, he faced a skeptical crowd and said: "I've been doing this before you all were f*&king born." Eight months after launch, Quibi was dead. Reality doesn't care about your résumé. https://t.co/ZYMpP1jLFX

Cool graphic on how the venture industry has evolved over the past 500 years. h/t @pavelprata https://t.co/2CL76j0nvR
Wow - that's a lot of opportunities for VCs and LPs to find each other...👇 🙏 Pavel Prata for collecting this list
if you don't close your round in the first day just re-incorporate every day until you close
Picking the wrong VP reverberates for 2+ years Picking the wrong cofounder reverberates for 10+ years You don’t fail, it’s just you could have done so much more. And that compounds, too.

- Know your worth - Hone your pitch - Meet the best VCs - Collect term sheets That's SaaStr AI VC -> https://t.co/XzJ5d0OqGr https://t.co/qulPugatLR

“VCs can’t just keep giving OpenAI employees billions of dollars to start a new company forever” VCs: https://t.co/lVyo5wnDoI
Office Hours: Building Developer Infrastructure at Scale with Jim Everingham In the world of AI, how do the very best companies build their developer infrastructure? To answer that question : On Tuesday, February 24, I’ll be hosting an in-person fireside chat with...
Here’s how increased access to cannabis led to Sparkplug’s explosive growth… The startup — a LAUNCH portfolio company — offers a SaaS product that educates and rewards and benefits the dispensary clerks and “budtenders” who actually sell cannabis to clients, incentivizing...
Intercom has pivoted from traditional SaaS to AI better than any company I can think of. I spoke to the CFO behind the customer support juggernaut, and the outcome based product Finn. Dan Griggs is mastering the new economics of AI in...
Related, and also worth remembering: make sure you aren't chasing a small market masquerading as a large market. Big transaction volume doesn’t always translate to real market opportunity for startups.
New @ThePeelPod with @JacquelineSYC19 How AI is changing data, getting enterprise customers from cold emails during YC, building an AI BDR in-house, why most functions at @artie_labs report to the CTO (not CEO), and what it's like raising a Series...
Let's go Gabriel Stengel @rogoai...
Annual planning is one of the most over-copied “big company” rituals in startups—and it quietly creates a lot of bad decisions. In large companies, annual planning makes sense. They’re hiring hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people, mobilizing new strategies, changing systems, rolling...
One of the reasons people are successful acquiring startups is simple: they’re not starting from zero. Zach Simmons is a good example of this. Instead of building something new from scratch, he acquired Appraiva (@appraiva) on @acquiredotcom which already had real...
Jeff Bezos said, "Your margin is my opportunity." Does this apply in software & AI? Yes—but not on price. 🧵
At SaaStr AI 2026, no vanity metrics Founders are sharing real numbers: What AI features actually convert. What pricing actually works. What GTM motions actually scale. May 12-14. SF Bay Bring your Granola. Or even a notebook. https://t.co/BCPo2TiqOt
>be openai >announce plans to take a cut of openai-aided discoveries >release prism, free tool for research teams >rate limit prism >announce prism+, more free credits, latest models >just promise small equity if you build co >openai becomes next yc >sama used to run yc
📣 Calling early stage, early career investors looking for a GREAT team to work with. Katie Jacobs Stanton and Moxxie Ventures is hiring. See posting below. 👇
How are Customer Success team's incentivized? Despite WHERE we tend to put CS on the P&L, they are NOT paid like sales I surveyed 132 companies on their CS compensation structures. And the VAST majority of CSMs are on plans where 20%...
Nvidia quietly went on a European shopping spree in 2025. 14 funding rounds, double the year before, backing names like Mistral, Revolut and Lovable. Excess cash recycled straight into the AI ecosystem. This looks less like opportunistic VC and more like long-term...

Per latest data from @cartainc, from 2023-2025: VC Deals Up Only 3%, But Dollars Up 130% From Q1 2023 to Q4 2025, the number of deals went from 802 to 823. Basically flat. But dollars deployed? $12.8B to $29.5B. That's 2.3x. VCs...
I'm a co-investor with a mega VC fund we don't talk about as much here but they are wildly successful in many top IPOs and top decile returns. And they have a really simple way they do follow-on checks: ✅If the company...