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The IPO fertility problem - by Dylan Collins

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Over the course of the last nine months or so (in the ‘what have you actually been doing with your life’ question which my mother routinely asks), I’ve looked at a lot, a LOT, of companies that are operating within a couple of concentric circles of the Fortnite, Roblox and Discord ecosystems. The general lack of VC investing is breeding a fascinating cohort of (relatively) bootstrapped startups doing interesting things. It turns out this is not a unique trend. The average number of VC-backed software companies in the US in the last three years is now less than a third of the average over the last decade. I speculated a while back that the post-ZIRP cohort of founders might be something special. And whether it’s a philosophical aversion to VC or just an inability to raise because you’re not the hot thing, it’s going to lead to some intriguing outcomes. Possible futures I think about include: Outcome 1: an increase in smaller M&A (perhaps raising the average exit rate) which makes founde

Over the course of the last nine months or so (in the ‘what have you actually been doing with your life’ question which my mother routinely asks), I’ve looked at a lot, a LOT, of companies that are operating within a couple of concentric circles of the Fortnite, Roblox and Discord ecosystems. The general lack of VC investing is breeding a fascinating cohort of (relatively) bootstrapped startups doing interesting things. It turns out this is not a unique trend. The average number of VC-backed software companies in the US in the last three years is now less than a third of the average over…

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