Kelly Robb

PitchBook's quarterly Venture Monitor report shows a market that is beginning to move again, but unevenly. These are discussions we have with customers every day and we have seen these trends play out across the market. But the numbers certainly speak for themselves. In 2025, AI accounted for about 65% of total deal value and nearly 40% of deal count, driving a highly concentrated environment where 50% of deal value went to just half of 1% of deals. Deal activity increased across every stage, with early-stage and first financings nearing 2021 highs, even as fundraising and liquidity remain constrained. It seems that opportunity is returning, but selectivity and differentiation matter more than ever. As always, we strive to ensure we are helping our clients across the private capital market ecosystem navigate the current environment. http://spr.ly/6045CFwD5

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Today SuppCo joined Function Health. At the end of 2024, we backed Steve Martocci and Nick Michlewicz at Greylock Partners, based on three views about where consumer health was going: 1. Self-directed health is now mainstream. Only 45% of 18–29 year olds see a primary care physician. People are building their own protocols and need trusted nodes, not influencer affiliate links, to do it. 2. The winners will own proprietary data networks. In a $175B / ~180K SKU industry drowning in marketing claims, SuppCo built TrustScore. This became an independent quality rating on 35K+ products, plus the largest network of real user stacks anywhere. That is a data asset that compounds, especially as users feed efficacy data via wearable/biomarker integrations. 3. The trust layer for AI-mediated commerce is an increasingly valuable layer to own. As discovery and purchase move into chat and agent interfaces, "which product can I actually trust?" is the question agents need someone to answer. SuppCo became that answer for supplements. Function is the right home because it closes the loop. If SuppCo answers what to take, Function answers whether it's actually working, in one continuous feedback cycle. This becomes a powerful data network. Big congrats to Steve, Nick, and the entire SuppCo team. You built something the industry genuinely needed -- on both the consumer and brand side. And to Jonathan Swerdlin and the Function team. Excited to see the impact on the broader category.

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Boards are supposed to help founders. Over the past 19 years, I've watched many trap them instead. As companies scale, many boards turn from insight to oversight and stop doing what founders actually need: Help making big, hard decisions. Early boards tend to be small, the board members are close to the business and highly invested in it. They argue from first principles. They help founders think. Later-stage boards often look more impressive on paper - they have more independent directors, committees and process. Somewhere along the way, collective problem solving gets replaced with oversight. The board shifts from helping the CEO make better decisions to monitoring decisions that have already been made. Strategy discussions get safer, real debate gets rarer and meetings become more about risk management than judgment. This usually coincides with the introduction of more professional board members. For better or worse, they often optimize for governance, optics, and liability management. That’s their job. But it’s not always what the company needs in moments of real uncertainty. Then, CEOs stop using them as thought partners. That’s a problem. So what should founders do? A few principles that help: • Keep the board as small as you can for as long as you can • Add directors for new insight they bring, not what boxes they check • Treat board seats like senior hires, not trophies • Design meetings for debate rather than reporting • Be explicit about when you want input vs approval Good boards should improve decision-making. If your board isn’t making you think harder, it’s probably not doing its job.

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The latest Studio Stack newsletter dropped on Friday — and in it, I unpack why community is the most underutilized competitive advantage in most organizations but ESPECIALLY in the Venture Studio sphere. 💡 87% of leaders say community is critical to their company’s mission 📈 79% report it’s directly impacting business results Yet most studios still treat it like a side project. In the article, I break down what actually works in 2025: → Build where people already “play” → Force connection (because they won’t do it themselves) → Curate, don’t just collect 'If you’re serious about standing out in a sea of 1,000+ studios, this one’s for you. 📰 Read the full issue — packed with new frameworks, launches, jobs, and insights from Studio builders and thought leaders across the world. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZ2AtsDy

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⚡ PE funds are sitting on $3.7 trillion they've already raised and haven't spent. Capital isn't scarce. Your data room is. I caught the Freeman Futurist Series at Tulane on the future of PE in the age of AI. The takeaway most founders are missing: Diligence that took 5 weeks now takes 3 days. That's not speed. That's exposure. What actually changed for founders raising in 2026: → Analysts don't crunch your numbers anymore. Agents do. Every SKU, every cost line, every cohort. → Bad data used to get buried in week 4. Now it surfaces on day 1. → "Proprietary edge" means clean data, not a clever deck. → The "advantaged owner" thesis is table stakes. Investors want to see exactly how AI grows your top line post-close, not someday. The part nobody is automating: The last 20% of a $500M check still gets signed on trust. Agents don't negotiate. Neurons do. The founders winning right now aren't the ones with the slickest AI story on slide 3. They're the ones whose data survives a 3-day teardown. Clean your data room before you take the meeting. By the time you're in the room, it's already too late. Comment DILIGENCE. I'll send the checklist. #Fundraising #PrivateEquity #AI #Startups #VentureCapital

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Interesting tidbit from the Women in VC Summit at Half Moon Bay. You wouldn’t necessarily think Deep Tech / AI and Consumer investors have much in common—beyond being founder-first. But post-2021/2022, the convergence is real. Across stages and sectors, the shift is toward: • Disciplined unit economics • Proof over possibility Whether it’s consumer or deep tech, the bar has moved from credible possibility to credible execution (credit to deep tech investor Kelly Chen for the phrasing). What that looks like in practice: - Deep Tech diligence → customer calls, pilots, real demand pull - Consumer diligence → channel checks, repeat purchase, retail velocity Different inputs. Same question: does the product actually work? The punchline for founders: everyone is underwriting outcomes now—not narratives. #WomenInVC #VentureCapital #Fundraising #UnitEconomics #StartupExecution #DeepTech #ConsumerVC

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HealthVC x Lusha: Unlocking Smarter Fundraising and Sales Workflows We’re thrilled to announce our newest partnership: HealthVC has teamed up with Lusha to bring next-gen data and prospecting tools to founders, fund managers, and operators across our community. Lusha recently launched a powerful suite of AI-powered features that redefine how go-to-market teams research, prospect, and convert. Now those capabilities are coming to HealthVC Pro subscribers. ✨ With this partnership, you’ll be able to: Surface real-time, accurate, and compliant B2B contact data Use AI Prospecting Chat to instantly uncover new investor or customer leads Tap into CRM-triggered recommendations to stay one step ahead Turn insight into action with Sales Streaming, Lusha’s smarter, connected selling framework. But Lusha’s superpower isn’t just the AI; it’s that the AI sits on top of best-in-class data. That means every signal, every recommendation, and every lead is not just fast, it’s trustworthy. At HealthVC, we’re building more than a newsletter; we’re building the operating system for venture, and this partnership helps our members move faster, pitch smarter, and close better. Available now to all HealthVC subscribers, link in comments.

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We pulled together this month’s Surfacing newsletter around a simple idea: as AI matures, fundamentals matter more. Team, operating discipline, and systems that hold up under real constraints. If you’re thinking about what it takes to build through the next phase of AI, this issue is for you. Read the full issue, linked here: https://lnkd.in/g6-GSE_J

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Another missive from Chuck Cotter and Daniel Faierman. Thanks guys for continuing to help to ecosystem. If you've not seen their posts, peek at https://lnkd.in/gPiu9Z4z. Topics include: · CPG Co-Manufacturing Contracts · Early Stage VC Terms to Rarely Accept · More Dividends (and Dividend Recaps?) · 5 Raises, 5 Takeaways · A Founder's Guide to Secondaries · Standing Out Pre-Traction · The State of VC · Corporate Governance 101 · Anti-Dilution Provisions · Primer on QSBS · 4 Fund Raising DON'Ts · Liquidation Preferences · Understanding SAFEs · Understanding Convertible Notes · Understanding Prorata Rights · Founders & Athletes · Employee Stock Options Demystified · The Art of Start-Up Valuation · What Is A Term Sheet Anyway? Check it out ...

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Most founders treat warm intros like a nice-to-have. They think if the deck is strong enough, the right investor will notice. They’re wrong. Investors don’t have a filtering problem. They have a trust problem. Every week, they see hundreds of decks. Some great. Many decent. A few even brilliant. But that’s not the bar. The real question isn’t “Is this startup promising?” It’s “Do I trust this founder enough to take the call, stake my reputation, and possibly invest?” That’s what a warm intro solves. It reduces the trust gap. When a credible founder, respected operator, or trusted LP vouches for you, you’re no longer a stranger in someone’s inbox—you’re a filtered signal from someone they already believe in. • Without that credibility transfer, the burden of proof falls entirely on your deck. And no matter how strong it is, most investors won’t roll the dice if no one is standing behind it. But here’s the part most people miss: You don’t get warm intros. You earn them-long before you need them. Because warm intros aren’t just about access. They’re about shared experience, long-game relationships, and quiet reputational equity. The founders who raise well are the ones who tend the garden: They help others before asking for help. They’re kind when no one’s watching. They make time for feedback, referrals, second looks. They show up generously—and consistently. Fundraising isn’t a visibility game. It’s a credibility game. And credibility isn’t built in the room. It’s built over time. This post is a primer on that blind spot: What warm intros actually signal to investors. Why founder-to-founder intros beat cold outreach every time. How to turn a “no” into long-term trust. Why using brokers or “fundraising middlemen” almost always backfires. How to build a reputation that makes capital feel like a shared bet—not a leap of faith. If you want to raise smarter-and faster-understand this: Warm intros aren’t about playing favorites. They’re about reducing friction in a world where trust is scarce and time is shorter. And the best time to start building trust? Before you need it. #startups #fundraising #venturecapital #warmintros #founderlife #networking #trustdriven

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Operating companies permanently changes how you invest. When you’ve lived through payroll cycles, commodity volatility, grid constraints, and board pressure in down markets, you stop starting with upside. Operators underwrite downside first: what breaks margins, what disrupts cash flow, what fails under stress. Capital doesn’t solve those problems but execution does. Operators: what risks do you underwrite first that others miss?

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So excited to announce this partnership with Marie Rocha & Realist Lab. I have known Marie for over a decade and the work she’s doing for entrepreneurs. She’s been at the forefront of building the next wave of founders and I’m excited to share What VCs Won't Say with the community. Also, big shoutout to the True Ventures team for supporting Realist Lab and I in this effort to educate more founders. Puneet Agarwal

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Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

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What is a "buyer-builder"? It's the founder archetype we back at Daring Ventures. Buyer-builders have lived experience and domain expertise on the industries they are building in. They've felt the friction and know which problems to address and who to build for. They don't need to do customer discovery because they've experienced it first-hand. Outsiders spend years and millions figuring out what buyer-builders already know. We started The Builders Series to profile the ones doing it right. This edition: Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan of ServiceTitan. Ara and Vahe did not need to be told that contractors were underserved. They grew up watching it. Their fathers, competent skilled operators, losing hours every week to paper invoices, missed calls, and work that software should have absorbed years earlier. Full piece on Forward This 👇

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Here's a transition we see go sideways all the time: successful services business. Revenue, team, domain expertise. The next step feels obvious -- start building ventures on that foundation. In theory, elegant. In practice, one of the hardest transitions in the studio world. The core problem is that costs and benefits land in the same place. The services team builds client work (pays bills now) and internal ventures (might pay in three years). When an outside investor looks at this, the question is immediate: how do I know the best people are on my ventures and not client projects? That's not a trust problem. It's an incentive alignment problem. 📉 We've seen the same diagnosis play out repeatedly. Venture builders and service providers share the same entity, the same P&L, the same team allocation. Ventures always lose this configuration because revenue-generating work always wins the resource fight. Cleanest solution: distinct entities, distinct teams, distinct reporting. Services business funds operations. Studio entity houses ventures. Shared thesis, separate P&L. If full separation isn't possible yet, raise per venture through SPVs. Build proof points one at a time. 🎯 Here's the takeaway -- the earn-to-own path is valid. But the operators who succeed plan for structural separation from day one. They don't assume services and studio can coexist in one body indefinitely. The ones who wait to separate usually never do. ⚡

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🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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