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

Spotting Unicorns Early #ai #venturecapital #investing #tech

16 Mar 2025 · 1 min

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0:44

Short transcript excerpt from a Precursor Ventures YouTube conversation about investing in high-growth companies (e.g., Stripe, OpenAI). Speakers discuss the mindset needed to envision massive upside in companies already valued at ~$1B, contrast that with the challenges facing emerging managers who face painful swings when entering at high prices, and note divergence in deal strategies between large funds and smaller/first-time funds.

Chapters

People got into Stripe at a billion people got into OpenAI at a billion still TBD but the data would suggest that you're up 300x not accounting for dilution and I think that's a different kind of bravery is the ability to see a company that's already valuable and be able to envision a world in which it becomes significantly more valuable And I think people like knock the big funds that I'm like I think it's very hard to see a company like Stripe and say I know it's at a billion today the ceiling is a hundred and you'd be like well do not have 100x from a billion unless you do.
I think that those are the outcomes that they need so it makes sense for them to jump into those companies Whereas I think think of, I don't know, emerging managers were on fund one and fund two. Those swings and misses are very painful because you come in at such a high price. We're seeing this divergence and the split out intensive deals that folks are looking at just given how big their firms are that.