The theory here is that you're getting two very different strategies, not both of which are particularly complementary. That's right, Caroline. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me again. I'm Lily Lyman, I'm at a_BC, we are a community-driven

early-stage venture firm based here in Boston. We invest in the pre-seed and seed stages in the world of B2B software. And your question is the right one. We're seeing the emergence of two very different strategies in venture, and it's bifurcating the market in a way that

almost looks like a barbell. On one hand, you have these big multi-billion dollar, multi-stage venture firms that are mega-firms. They're really sort of financial institutions at this point, and I hear LPs refer to these as venture beta.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have smaller funds, more specialized, targeted strategies. That's where we come into play, and it's because of our belief that's where you can still get venture alpha—that three-to-five, even 10X return—what's

happened over the last 18 months or so, though, is we're seeing a heavy concentration of LP dollars going into the mega-funds. So, 80% of capital raised last year went to established managers of firms sized over 500 million, and the representation of

these firms is increasing. So it's gone from about 2% to 25% in the venture market. And that over-representation has a lot of implications for LPs, for managers, and for founders. Okay, let's talk about what that means for VCs.

Ultimately, you're going to see more consolidation among the pre-seed stage funds.  Do you need the breadth of more focused funds?  Consolidation is happening in the middle. I think what it means is that we're

going to see more specialization at the earliest stages. So firms like ours need to really lean into differentiation, get to founders early, and back perhaps non-consensus, non-obvious founders and ideas, because that's how you can capture true alpha.

What's happening with the multi-stage strategy at the seed stage is that they play more of an index game, putting out a lot of checks and then backing the winners. But the implication is that they're not always

very price-sensitive, and it can dilute the entire early-stage class if you can't counter that and really dig in and go earliest and non-consensus. So that's how we've been thinking about it in order

to counteract some of the implications of the multi-stage indexing model at the seed stage. It kind of takes me back to when SoftBank first unveiled their $100 billion fund and everyone felt that the Vision Fund was just going to give enormous amounts

of money to individual founders or companies and sort of drown out the rest of the competition. Does that happen, or does it just inflate valuations? What is the real impact on those very early-stage bets?

I think it could have multiple impacts. I think, on one hand, the indexing can impact valuations for everyone, so it can actually dilute returns across the board. But on the other hand, if you can get in early or invest in non-consensus opportunities, I think you can still generate real alpha.

I think part of the implication is a question for founders as well. I think we're seeing founders think a lot about who they bring to their table at which stages of company building. In the market peak during the zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP) era, there was a lot of speed dating; a lot of capital went out the door very quickly.

Then, two years later, we had a much tougher environment, and it was hard for founders. So I think we're seeing founders—both new and sophisticated—think about what kind of investments and investors they want around their table for each stage of company building.

And they're thinking more about alignment: What does that check mean to that firm, and how does that infer how they'll act during the company-building process? I'm assuming that most founders you're seeing are having to lean into generative AI, even if they are not an AI-specific company.

But what does that mean in terms of trying to uncover the least-covered areas or the particularly non-consensus builders and founders you want to find? We're certainly seeing a ton of opportunity in AI, and over 30% of venture capital is in this area.

Past year, we invested in AI companies, and we expect that number to increase next year. But what we're seeing is companies that are AI-native, both in their product offerings and in how they're built.

I think one of the things that makes this time particularly exciting to be an early-stage investor is that companies are being built with a new model and a new capital structure, allowing for greater efficiency. Engineering, sales, and marketing can all be much more efficient.

So there's a mentality of 'doing more with less.'  Outside of foundational models and infrastructure—areas where we invest heavily—in applied and vertical AI applications, I think you can build pretty big companies with a totally different capital structure, given the increased efficiencies of building with AI itself.

How many of those companies are in Boston, or are you looking across the US?

We invest across the US, but we're very bullish on Boston. Over half of our capital is deployed here.  That's because Boston's ecosystem consistently produces top talent, top research and development, and consistently solves hard problems in areas like healthcare, biotech, life sciences, financial services, cybersecurity, energy, and climate.

It's consistently solving really hard problems in areas like healthcare, biotech and life sciences, financial services, cybersecurity, and energy and climate.

So, you know, these three factors are part of what makes us very excited to invest in the Boston ecosystem, particularly in this age of applied AI.

Tech Valuations and Boston's Tech Scene

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두 가지 뚜렷한 벤처 캐피탈 전략의 등장

대형 다단계 회사와 소규모 전문 펀드, 두 가지 대조적인 벤처 캐피탈 전략이 등장하고 있습니다.

대기업은 금융 기관처럼 행동하는 메가 기업 또는 벤처 베타로 묘사됩니다.

소규모 펀드는 전문화된 전략에 초점을 맞추고 더 높은 수익률(벤처 알파)을 목표로 합니다.

자본의 상당 부분이 대형 펀드로 유입되고 있으며, 이는 시장에서의 대표성 증가로 이어지고 있습니다.

이러한 변화는 LP, 매니저, 창업자에게도 영향을 미칩니다.

벤처 캐피털리스트(VC)를 위한 시사점

프리 시드 단계 펀드 간 통합이 예상되어 전문성이 강화될 것으로 보입니다.

소규모 기업은 초기 단계의 비합의 창업자 및 아이디어에 집중하여 차별화해야 합니다.

다단계 기업은 인덱싱 전략을 사용하므로 가격에 덜 민감하고 초기 단계의 투자가 희석될 가능성이 있습니다.

소프트뱅크의 비전 펀드와 같은 대형 펀드가 초기 단계 투자에 미치는 영향은 밸류에이션을 부풀릴 수 있다는 점을 고려할 때 논의됩니다.

창업자 및 투자 전략에 미치는 영향

인덱싱은 밸류에이션에 영향을 미칠 수 있지만, 컨센서스가 아닌 기회에 대한 초기 투자는 여전히 높은 수익을 낼 수 있습니다.

창업자들은 투자자와 회사 설립 프로세스에 대해 더욱 신중하게 선택하고 있습니다.

AI를 전문으로 하지 않는 회사에서도 점점 더 많은 창업자들이 제너레이티브 AI를 도입하고 있습니다.

AI와 효율적인 기업 구축의 기회

AI 네이티브 기업을 중심으로 상당한 벤처 캐피탈이 AI로 유입되고 있습니다.

기업은 새로운 모델과 자본 구조로 구축되고 있으며, 이는 효율성 향상으로 이어지고 있습니다.

특히 응용 및 수직적 AI 애플리케이션에서 '더 적은 자원으로 더 많은 일을 하려는' 사고방식이 부상하고 있습니다.

미국 전역에서 투자가 이루어지고 있지만 상당 부분이 보스턴에 배치되어 있습니다.

보스턴의 생태계는 다양한 분야의 인재, R&D, 문제 해결 능력으로 높은 평가를 받고 있습니다.