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How Will a Venture Capital Recovery Feel? Observations from 2008

Tom Tunguz

In 2008, I had just become a venture capitalist. With 15 years’ perspective, I plotted the QQQ (Nasdaq) value against venture Investing activity & venture Exits activity (all log normalized). for QQQ/Investing & 0.93 What will a venture capital turnaround feel like? Will it be gradual or sudden? for QQQ/Exits.

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The Tough Side of Being Venture Backed: ActOn Sells for $53m After 17 Years … And Raising ~$53m+

SaaStr

Founded 2008 * Raises ~$53m in VC * Sells 17 years later for $53m * Only $20m of that cash * 2x ARR price * 1x What Raised Just plain tough. Thats just how investing work. I used to sort of think that way. But the reality is, VCs only make real money if founders make a ton of money. The stakes go way up. So who makes what here?

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What Could the Venture Market Look Like in the Coronavirus Era

Tom Tunguz

The most recent event to use as an analogy is the 2008 financial crisis. In 2008, I had just joined the venture industry, and then Lehman fell. In 2006, VCs invested about $3.5B That grew to about $5B per quarter in 2007 and early 2008. Then the investing velocity fell by half to $2.9B, $2.7B, and $2.3B

Marketing 359
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How to Successfully Bring AI Products to Market at Scale with GitHub’s CRO

SaaStr

GitHub, founded in 2008, is a leading platform for software development and version control that has made waves since 2018 with its AI Copilot. Don’t underestimate the investments you need to make here to be compelling to your customers. Another big investment during rapid growth is digital moments.

Scale 263
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The Fundraising Market Two Quarters into COVID

Tom Tunguz

We reviewed the data in May and compared it to the effects of the financial crisis in 2008 on startup fundraising. As a reminder, 2008 saw a 40% reduction in venture dollars invested in startups. These corrections match 2008. The amount of available dollars to invest is high. The fundraising market is contracting.

Marketing 364
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Product-Market Fit in Different Capital Environments

Tom Tunguz

When I asked him what he meant, he replied because capital was so plentiful and accessible today, he hired more expensive people, spent more time developing a product, and invested with a longer time horizon before demonstrating evidence of success. In 2008, tightfistedness dominated the market. In my notebook, I sketched this 2x2.

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5 Interesting Learnings From DropBox at $2.6 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

And now it’s transitioning to its third phase, investing big in its more AI focused business offering, Dash, while managing its classic but mature file sharing business efficiently. ” Drew Houston has been CEO since Day 1 in 2008 and we’re super excited to have him speaking at 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay !

AI Search 178