Precursor VenturesA classic pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm

Do VCs Owe Founders More Than Just Money?

7 May 2025 · 1 min

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A Precursor Ventures monologue about whether venture capitalists owe founders more than capital—specifically discussing the duty of care toward portfolio companies that are subscale or not high-growth. The speaker suggests some VCs prefer focusing on ‘rocket ship’ companies and proposes that firms might hire operating partners to provide different guidance and board stewardship for lower-growth companies.

Chapters

I don't think most VCs want to be in this business I say this business I mean the business of working with companies that they've invested in that are subscale but maybe there's an alternative path I think most VCs I know want to spend their money and time on the rocket ship companies so I do think there's this duty of care that you know if you made a commitment to a founder to work with them it hopefully was a thick and thin commitment and I wonder if firms will start to in the same way that they added board partners I wonder if some firms will just say hey look these companies require a different set of resources a different set of guidance I want to spend my time time on the high growth stuff we're going to bring in an operating partner whose job it is to be the board member and shepherd these companies to the second path because I think right now the belief is that second path is a lower scale outcome path if you.