The fundraising landscape in 2022

With late stage and public valuations down on last year what can startups learn from VC activity in 2022?

2022 has been a whirlwind of political and financial upheaval, supply chain issues and extreme weather patterns on a global scale. We’re living in interesting times. What does this mean for seed stage startups and even Series A companies who are looking to raise money in this turbulent environment?

Fundraising in 2022 is undoubtedly more difficult than the previous year. But how difficult and when is it going to improve? Managing director of Redpoint Ventures Logan Bartlett advised that those who couldn’t hold out and needed to seek funding waited until later in the year.

Why is this? Earlier this year, said Logan, the venture capital community was unsure how to value businesses. Late stage and public valuations were, in the VC expert’s opinion, down 60 to 70 percent on 2021.

Matt Garratt, general partner with CRV, says that these startups are “partially being jerked around by the venture capital community who don’t know how to value businesses anymore”.

Should startups be playing it safe? Is a down round the way to go over a flat round? Matt and other experts in this space including Beth Ferreira, managing partner at FirstMark, give their views in this episode of The Next Stage.

Villi Iltchev, partner, Two Sigma Ventures, Beth Ferreira, managing partner, FirstMark, Logan Bartlett, managing director, Redpoint Ventures, and Matt Garratt, general partner, CRV were all in conversation with Katie Roof, VC reporter, Bloomberg on Centre stage at Collision 2022.

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Main image of speakers, from left, Villi Iltchev, partner, Two Sigma Ventures, Beth Ferreira, general partner, FirstMark Capital, Logan Bartlett, managing director, Redpoint Ventures, Matt Garratt, general partner, CRV, and Katie Roof, VC reporter, Bloomberg, on Centre Stage during day one of Collision 2022. Sam Barnes/Web Summit