A short talk by Jason M. Lemkin arguing that since 2021 venture capital has permanently shifted focus from finding unicorns (~$1B companies) to hunting decacorns (>$10B companies). He cites historical IPO valuations as context and suggests the market and product ecosystem (e.g., Stripe, Databricks, APIs) will sustain a steady stream of decacorns.
So. But my point is that what I think has changed permanently, permanently since 2021 is Venture Post Seed is perpetually going to be sourcing. Searching for decacorns. We're all searching for unicorns. Box IPO'd at 800 million HubSpot IPO'd at 800 million valuation. Shopify IPO'd at a 750 million dollar valuation. We were searching for unicorns. We were searching for unicorns. And then when things got good, every unicorn was a decacorn, right? In the public markets and in the private markets, right? And I think we have now been wired that way. And as long as there are a steady stream of stripes and data bricks and open APIs there, there will be enough Decacorns that venture is permanently decacorn Hunters.
