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Is raising money still in demand, or has the sentiment around VC funding changed?

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When someone raised money, especially from a prominent VC with a strong reputation, like Antler or Y Combinator, the company immediately sounded more trustworthy to me.

But shared by showed that in the first half of the year, only 26 launches were VC-funded.

To be honest, I would have expected more launches to be backed by VCs.

So what's happening?

Is interest in VC funding taking a back seat, with more people preferring the bootstrapped model?

Or is there something else going on (e.g. VCs are more selective about who they should invest in)?

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VC money makes sense for big, ambitious projects. Projects that address big markets and could give VCs big returns. There could not be many of those. Very difficult place to be.

There is another category of projects. Perhaps solopreneurs who try to solve their own problem. They do not want nor need outside money. They do not want either the pressure to give back those huge returns for VCs. And... by the way, boogtstrapped can also be big and ambitious. Only the process is different.

There are roughly two different models:

  • VC: raise capital → grow very fast → pursue a huge market → eventually produce a very large return.

  • Bootstrapped/solopreneur: solve a real problem → build a sustainable business → keep control → earn money without needing enormous growth.

Just different games. The entrepreneur has to decide where he/she/we want to play.

 I couldn't agree more! Perfectly said.

 So does it mean that here... those big projects didn't launch? When there weren't so many funded. I think that it used to be more projects launched with some VC-funding

 If I understand, the study does not make it clear that interest in VC funding is taking a back seat. It only says "is a conservative lower bound".

On the other side, they talk only about Product Hunt, not the overall demand for VC funding.

PH is a place where there are more small projects. The big ones have other channels as priority. We see some big companies here but they seem to post something and go. They probably have a long list of places they post. For them, PH seems just a small piece of a numbers game.

What I see in comments in VC interviews is that there is a lot of money chasing projects. Perhaps PH is just not the right place for that? My perception is that the VC investment in general in US and Europe is increasing but for fewer players. Consequence of AI's huge needs for capital, perhaps?

What do you think:

- Is PH the best place for VC projects?
- Are most of VCs concentrating their bets in big AI projects?

 I first thought more about the relation between PH and VC-funded projects here, because I have an impression that there are fewer VC-funded projects lately on the platform.