One of the earlier and most prominent seed-stage venture capital firms, SV Angel, is significantly scaling back its investing program amid an explosion of competition in exactly the field it pioneered.
There’s so much money in early-stage investing these days that Ron Conway’s firm is scaling back
It’s a telling moment since it shows how messy the investing scene has become to fund brand-new startups.
The firm, run by one of Silicon Valley’s most well-connected financiers and political powerbrokers, Ron Conway, said it would no longer raise outside money and would instead just invest his personal family money along with his son, Topher. It’s a big deal — and a telling moment — since it shows how messy the investing scene has become to fund brand-new startups: There are so many firms, so much money and so little differentiation.
“Seed investing now encompasses both backing founders at the earliest stages of a company and investing in teams with early-adoption. The amount of money raised in seed rounds has doubled and valuations have increased significantly. As we thought about how best to serve founders in this environment, we also realized we no longer need to write big checks in order to help.”
SV Angel is one of the most well-regarded early-stage venture capital firms, and Conway in particular is a major Silicon Valley personality in his own right. The firm has been in flux after a falling out between Conway and his former business partner, David Lee, and the firm has been largely run operationally these days by his son.
Now, it’ll be entirely the Conway family’s show: The other three general partners at SV Angel — Brian Pokorny, Kevin Carter and Robert Pollak — will still advise the firm. But since it’ll have less money to spend, they won’t remain partners in the fund going forward.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
See More:
