All-In PodcastE141: State of Series A's, VC dry powder, IPO window opens + more with Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Venture Reset: Series A Reality, Dry Powder Myths, IPO Reckoning Arrives
- The episode brings Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner together with the All-In crew to dissect today’s venture landscape, from Series A dynamics to late-stage distress and the reopening IPO window. They argue that while new early-stage deals have stabilized near pre-pandemic norms, hundreds of overvalued 2020–2021 ‘unicorns’ now face painful down rounds, structural cap-table problems, or forced IPOs. The group unpacks the misconception of VC “dry powder,” explaining LP constraints, distorted marks, and why many funds are deliberately deploying slowly. They also touch on the macro backdrop—disinflation, rising effective rates, record debt—and sprinkle in discussions on biographies, craft, and career advice as context for how great investors and operators think.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasSeries A has cooled but remains competitive, especially outside AI.
Median Series A rounds and valuations are down versus 2022, yet Bill Gurley notes the market has not reverted to 2010-era austerity—top-tier A rounds, particularly in AI and infrastructure, still see strong competition and elevated pricing.
Many ‘unicorns’ are structurally trapped and will need painful resets.
Companies that raised huge late-stage rounds at extreme valuations now have complex cap tables and large liquidation preference stacks; new private money often avoids these situations, pushing them toward recaps or down-round IPOs to ‘clean up’ and reset reality.
VC ‘dry powder’ is committed, not sitting in GP bank accounts.
Capital is called from LPs over years, not front-loaded, and LPs face their own liquidity, denominator, and bonus-linked marking incentives—so the idea of a guaranteed wall of money rushing back into startups is overstated.
Fund deployment pace is slowing as GPs protect franchise survival.
Younger funds and expanded platforms are stretching out deployment (e.g., 3–4 years) because running out of capital without realizations could jeopardize their ability to raise the next fund; “going slow” is a rational survival move.
The IPO window is cracking open—expect both premium and down-round IPOs.
With software multiples normalized and M&A constrained by regulators, high-quality names like ARM and Instacart are preparing to go public, often at major discounts to their last private valuations, which will reset cap tables and reprice late-stage paper.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesThe number of private unicorns briefly exceeded the number of public tech companies over a billion dollars.
— Bill Gurley
Underperforming companies that were valued over a billion dollars are dead on arrival until you get to a market-clearing price.
— Brad Gerstner
Any tech venture investor who compares their fund’s return to the S&P is being naive or disingenuous. The correct index to compare to is the QQQ.
— Brad Gerstner (quoting and discussing Gokul Rajaram’s tweet)
The venture capital markets have stabilized for funding new companies, but we’re going to have a one- to two-year period of distress for all those bubble companies.
— David Sacks
If you strip the peak years out of a 40-year assessment, venture is actually not that interesting an asset class.
— Bill Gurley
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