VC Aileen Lee highlights how the broader investor exodus is worsening woes for unicorn companies

On this week’s episode of the StrictlyVC Obtain podcast, veteran VC Aileen Lee was direct a couple of main consequence of the current boom-and-bust cycle: many firms caught in limbo aren’t simply struggling to regain their footing after elevating an excessive amount of cash at unsustainable valuations; they’ve additionally misplaced the champions who as soon as backed them.

Lee was discussing how restricted companions hesitate to criticize highly effective fund managers, fearing they’ll be shut out from investing in these companies once more. However she imagined one factor they’d say if they might communicate freely:

“Everyone desires to get into X model identify fund, and they also by no means will criticize them [for fear of repercussions] . . .they in all probability speak about us behind our backs [laughs].. . .However what they might say is [that] all of the individuals who have [were] employed at these enterprise companies throughout the ZIRP period . . . they made a bunch of crappy investments” and now they’re being elbowed out — besides that it’s too late, noticed Lee. “All [the LPs’] cash mainly simply received thrown down the drain as a result of the folks within the enterprise jobs didn’t stick round lengthy sufficient to see if the businesses have been profitable.”

It’s not the fault of those newer buyers, Lee continued. “Only a ton of individuals didn’t get skilled and didn’t get any mentorship or apprenticeship got checkbooks, and a number of investments have been made, and . . .there are a number of orphaned firms,” in consequence.

However there’s one more reason startups are being left to their very own units “and I discover this loopy,” mentioned Lee; in lots of instances, firms have been orphaned by a extra senior basic accomplice “who led the funding – who remains to be there [at the firm] however simply stopped displaying as much as the board conferences.”

For sure firms, it’s been occurring for years at this level. Nobody did as a lot due diligence throughout the go-go Covid period of funding, and the nook slicing by no means fairly stopped when it got here to those similar investments. However it’s additionally a key purpose a rising variety of firms are struggling to search out exterior assist with exit methods, and why LPs could be justified in voicing extra frustration.

As one other longtime VC, Jason Lemkin, informed this editor in late 2022 when VCs first stopped displaying up on the board conferences of startups that have been shedding momentum: “[S]houldn’t there be checks and balances? Hundreds of thousands and tens of millions are invested by pension funds and universities and widows and orphans, and if you don’t do any diligence on the way in which in, and also you don’t do continuous diligence at a board assembly, you’re form of abrogating a few of your fiduciary tasks to your LPs, proper?”

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