I think we’re starting to see frothy valuations coming back in certain areas, especially genAI. We’re talking about $30mm pre for pre-seed, pre-product teams. I don’t think that’s particularly healthy.
If you were lucky enough to raise big venture funding, one thing I often tell founders is treat the money as if it was a repayable loan.
No one throws a block party for their mortgage approval and part of the reason is they know too well that the money needs to be repaid at some point. It’s the same for VC funding too – except the investor expectation/hope is only higher (everybody wants a 10x return). All kinds of problems happen when founders think the VC investment is “their money”.