SaaStr 799: The Series A Landscape in 2025: Insights from Chemistry VC's Ethan Kurzweil
SaaStr 799: The Series A Landscape in 2025: Insights from Chemistry VC's Ethan Kurzweil
SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin and Ethan Kurzwiel, previously partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and now founding partner at Chemistry VC, took us through a deep dive of exactly where Series A funding is right now in 2025.
Current State of Early-Stage Venture Market The early-stage venture landscape has experienced significant shifts since the peaks of 2021. We're seeing:
Deal activity decline: From the highs of 2021 (around 3.5B raised in Q4 2021), we're seeing a return to baseline levels but still below pre-zero interest rate era volumes.
Longer funding timelines: Seed to Series A timelines have stretched from approximately 12 months to 25 months on average, requiring founders to plan for longer runways.
More capital into fewer deals: While total capital deployment is returning to pre-2021 levels, it's being concentrated in fewer companies, making the environment more binary and competitive.
Graduation rates plummeting: The percentage of seed companies successfully raising Series A has dropped significantly across all industries, creating a "crunch" for many startups.
Listen in for more!
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We've entered an era of Fintech Maximalism according to Mark Goldberg
After nearly a decade at Index Ventures, where he backed standout fintech companies like Plaid, Persona, Lithic, and Pilot, Mark Goldberg left to launch Chemistry, an early-stage venture firm.
Founded alongside Kristina Shen and Ethan Kurzweil, the $350 million fund is part of a growing trend in venture capital: seasoned investors breaking out from large platforms to build more focused, boutique outfits.
Today on Equity, Mary Ann Azevedo caught up with Goldberg about what led him to make the move, what Chemistry is all about, and how the venture landscape has evolved over the past few years.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
The state of fintech, a sector Goldberg has long had his eye on—and why he sees “a lot more tech-fin than fintech” these days
Why those waiting for a wave of fintech IPOs might be in for a long hold
What he’s watching for in 2025 and beyond, from the impact of AI on fraud to shifting deal activity, including a pickup in M&A and secondaries
Equity will be back with our weekly news roundup on Friday, so don’t miss it!
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.
Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
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Ethan Kurzweil on Venture Investing in the Post-ZIRP, AI Era
In the 2010s, we saw an incredible boom in the venture capital space, fueled in part by cheap capital as well as cheap compute. Fast forward to today, and many things look very different. We're not in the ZIRP era anymore. And computing power has become a scarce resource, particularly when it comes to AI. So how do things look different today from the perspective of a veteran venture capitalist? In this episode, recorded live in San Francisco in November, we speak to Ethan Kurzweil, a founder and managing partner at the new VC firm Chemistry. Ethan spent years at Bessemer Venture Partners, where he was involved in numerous software deals. He talks to us about his strategy for the new fund, the case for starting a small firm, what technologies excite him most right now, and the general landscape for seed-stage investing.
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20VC: The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms; Why Portfolio Services are for VCs not Founders | Why Politics is Rife & Decision-Making is Broken in Large VCs | Why Reserves are Bad for Founders & How Boutique Firms Will Win with Mark Goldberg @ Chemistry
Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox.
In Today's Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss:
1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms:
Why are portfolio services there to help the investing partners and not the founders?
What are the most broken elements within a multi-stage firm?
How does decision-making break down in large partnerships?
When is the right time to work with multi-stage firms? When is not?
2. From Boutique High Margins to Commoditised Low Margins:
With the immense amount of cash that has entered VC, will returns simply get worse?
Who will be the winners in the next 10 years of venture?
Who will be the losers? What can they do today to change this?
What element of the future of venture are not enough people spending time on?
3. Lessons from Leading Unicorn Company Rounds:
What happens to all the unicorns with insanely high prices they cannot grow into?
What has been Mark's biggest hit? What did he learn?
What has been his biggest miss? How did that change his go-forward approach?
Does Mark agree that 90% of VC do not add value?
This is fintech's 'Noah's Ark Year'
Mary Ann is taking over while Natasha attends a summit in LA, and this week, she interviewed Mark Goldberg, partner and fintech lead at Index Ventures. Since 2015, Mark has spent his time investing in - and sitting on the boards of - financial services companies including Plaid, Persona, Lithic, Cocoon, and Pilot.
The duo talked about:
The party that was 2021 and the hangover that was 2022
Mark's Twitter prediction that raised some eyebrows on Twitter
Why 2023 will be a survival of the fittest
Alex, Mary Ann, and Becca are back Friday with more Equity, but as always, you can keep up with us in the meantime on Twitter @EquityPod.
For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity's Simplecast website.
Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more!
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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Move fast and make sure nobody gets pager alerts at 2AM
Ethan started his career when the marquee tag was king and is bullish on its comeback.
His focus as an investor is on developer tools & infrastructure, open source software, space, and emerging compute.
We talk about his time as a Product Group Leader at Facebook, and his strong feelings on the state of DevOps.
You can find his investor profile here, his blog here, and on Twitter here.
Our lifeboat badge of the week goes to Denys Vuika, who answered the question: How do I configure Yarn as the default package manager for Angular CLI?
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
20VC: Index Ventures Partner, Mark Goldberg on The Questions Founders Must Ask A Multi-Stage Fund Before Taking Their Money At Seed, Why Most Angels Will Lose Their Money & Why We Will See Our First $100Bn Neo-Bank Shortly
Mark Goldberg is a Partner @ Index Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Revolut, Supercell, Plaid and Transferwise to name a few. As for Mark, since joining Index he has largely specialised on all things financial services and sits on the board of Plaid, Nova Credit, Intercom, Pilot and more incredible companies. Prior to Index, Mark spent 3 years in BizOps at Dropbox where the company increased tenfold during his time there.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Mark made his way into the world of venture with Index having spent 3 years at Dropbox during a transformational time for the company? What were Mark's biggest takeaways from seeing the growth cycle at Dropbox? How did that impact his investing mindset with Index?
2.) Why does Mark believe that venture as an asset class is commoditising? What does Mark believe the best funds will have to do to stay ahead? How does Mark build relationships of trust and authenticity so early with founders? What works? What does not? What is the right way to deliver direct and tough feedback to founders?
3.) How does Mark feel about multi-stage funds re-entering seed investing again? What are the right questions seed founders should ask multi-stage funds when determining whether to take their money? What does Mark believe it takes to be competitive and win the very best of deals? How is the Founder <> VC dynamic changing with capital supply?
4.) Why does Mark believe that most angels are going to lose their money? What does Mark wish all angels knew when they started? How does Mark feel about the rise of founders investing alongside operating? What are the pros? What are the cons? How does Mark feel about the rise of scout funds? Where is there place in the ecosystem?
5.) We are seeing unparalleled levels of activity in fintech, is this a boom or are we at the start of a fundamental shift in the landscape? Why does Mark believe we will soon see our first $100Bn neo-bank? Why does Mark believe we will see a strong rise in the consolidatory environment for fintech moving forward?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Mark's Fave Book: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mark on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
20VC: Bessemer's Ethan Kurzweil on How To View Pattern Recognition and Deal With The Anti-Portfolio, The Next Frontier In Developer Focussed Businesses & Why eSports Is Interesting Again
Ethan Kurzweil is a Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the world leading venture funds with prior investments including the likes of Skype, LinkedIn, Yelp and Pinterest just to name a few. As for Ethan, he focuses on consumer facing technology and developer platforms having made investments in the likes of Twitch, Periscope and Dropcam on the consumer side and Twilio, Intercom and SendGrid on the developer platform side, just to name a few from his outstanding portfolio.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Ethan made his entrance into the world of venture and came to be a partner @ Bessemer?
2.) What was the developer roadmap that Ethan established a couple of years ago? Why was it controversial at the time? How have we seen this play out and come into fruition? What is the next frontier in developer focussed businesses?
3.) Ethan has previously said, 'history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme'. How does Ethan view pattern recognition? How does Ethan look to avoid biases and escape the echo chamber of Silicon Valley?
4.) How does Ethan see the world of eSports evolving? From an investment perspective, where does the equity value creation lie; the brands being built or the core underlying technology?
5.) Bessemer publishes their anti-portfolio, why is this? What does one need to take away when assessing the opportunities they have missed? How can one build a process of self-reflection around the anti-portfolio?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Ethan's Fave Book: The Namesake
Ethan's Fave Blog: Nuzzel
Ethan's Most Recent Investment: Periscope Data
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ethan on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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