Ford Motors dominated the auto market in the early 20th century with a single car model, the Model T. At the time, customers were seeking low-cost, functional cars, and were satisfied by an extremely standardized product (Ford famously quipped that “customers can choose it in any color, as long as it’s black”). But as technology improved and serious competitors emerged, customers began wanting cars that were tailored to their specific needs and desires. The basis of competition shifted from price and basic functionality to ”style, power, and prestige“. General Motors surpassed Ford by capitalizing on this desire for segmentation. They created Cadillacs for wealthy older folks, Pontiacs for hipsters, and so on.
Today, the venture financing industry is going through a similar segmentation process. Venture capital has only existed in its modern form for about 35 years. In the early days there were relatively few VCs. Entrepreneurs were happy simply getting money and general business guidance. Today, there is a surplus of venture capital and entrepreneurs have become increasingly savvy “shoppers.” As a result, competition amongst venture financiers has increased and their “customers” (entrepreneurs) have flocked to more specialized “products.”
Some of this segmentation has been by industry (IT, cleantech, health care) and subindustry (iPhone apps, financial tech, etc). But more pronounced, especially lately, has been the segmentation by company stage. Today at least four distinct types of venture financing “products” have become popular.
1) Mentorship programs like Y Combinator help startups ideate, form founding teams, and build initial products. I suspect many of the companies they hatch wouldn’t exist at all (and certainly wouldn’t be as savvy) if it weren’t for these programs.
2) So-called super angels provide capital and guidance to a) hire non-founder employees, b) further product development c) market the initial product (usually to early adopters), and d) raise follow on VC funding. Often current or former entrepreneurs themselves, super angels have gone through this stage many times as founders and angel investors.
3) Traditional VCs (Sequoia, Kleiner, etc) help companies scale and get to profitability. They often have broad networks to help with hiring, sales, bizdev and other scaling functions. They are also experts at selling companies and raising follow-on financing.
4) Accelerator funds (most prominent recently is DST) focus on providing partial liquidity and preparing the company for an IPO or big M&A exit.
In the past, traditional VC’s played all of of these roles (hence they called themselves “lifecycle” investors). They incubated companies, provided smalls seed financings, and in some cases provided later stage liquidity. But mostly the mentorship and angel investing roles were played by entrepreneurs who had expertise but shallow pockets and limited time and infrastructure.
What we are witnessing now is a the VC industry segmenting as it matures. Mentorship and angel funding are performed more effectively by specialized firms. Entrepreneurs seem to realize this and prefer these specialized “products.” There is a lot of angst and controversy on tech blogs that tends to focus on individual players and events. But this is just a (sometimes salacious) byproduct of the larger trends. The segmentation of the venture industry is healthy for startups and innovation at large, even if at the moment it might be uncomfortable and confusing for some of the people involved.
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