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Today in founder news
Large well known crossover fund PM calls one of our founders. Explains to them that they should have "sympathy" that the hedge fund performance is poor and therefore term sheets and hand shakes have no value.
Large well known crossover fund PM calls one of our founders. Explains to them that they should have "sympathy" that the hedge fund performance is poor and therefore term sheets and hand shakes have no value.
This specific fund assumes that because they are large enough and can write $100m checks - their reputation will not be impacted. i.e they can come back in the next cycle to spray and pray.
This comment is not specific to this fund, but what I think of as generic wall Street type crossover tourists...
This is very different than traditional growth funds in the valley -- reputation, handshakes and their word matters - because they play the long game
Our strong feedback to YC portfolio companies is to avoid these scaled up crossover, spray and pray funds - at all costs. Unless you have no choice of course.
And more important - contrarian take - more silicon valley firms should scale up their growth funds to prevent / mitigate bad behaviors from crossover funds.
We also encourage YC founders to read internal reviews for funds before signing term sheets.
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Jason Lemkin @JasonBeKindLemkin
ยท
Oct 13, 2022
Important thread. Abstracting one level up, different types of investors have different odds of closing a term sheet Are types of investors where odds are < 50%, and types where odds are 90%, and types where it's basically 100% Founders need to learn which they are talking to