romon

Data shows nearly all generational companies (Stripe, Airbnb, Databricks, etc.) had seed rounds led by multi-stage firms (Sequoia, a16z, Khosla, Index, Lightspeed), not seed specialists, because multi-stage firms have broader coverage and win on brand/terms.

These three firms consistently win bake-offs due to deep benches of operators-turned-investors with storied board reputations; founders optimize for board partner quality over terms, creating a self-reinforcing brand moat.

Unprecedented growth rates (20x → 15x → 10x YoY) make fair multiples indeterminate; while product-market fit signals are extreme, low predictability (application-layer obsolescence risk) means the asset class impact is undetermined, not clearly healthy or unhealthy.

A dozen private companies can now absorb $500M-$1B checks, allowing venture funds to scale to $5-12B AUM; these firms still outpace public comps on growth, but throttled liquidity (1-5% tenders) maintains productivity while delaying LP distributions.