📘Carta 2025 Fund Economics Report
🔥 Top 8 Lessons from 1000+ YC Startups
In This Edition:
- 📘 Carta 2025 Fund Economics Report
- 🔥 Top 8 Lessons from 1000+ YC Startups
- 💸 25 Tips from Paul to Hack Fundraising
- 🤖 The AI Meeting Tools Everyone Wants
- 🚨 Inside ElevenLabs’ $6.6B Pitch
📘 Carta 2025 Fund Economics Report
🔥Top 10 Charts from Carta’s 2025 Fund Economics Report
Why Fund Economics Matter More Than Ever
A quiet shift is reshaping how modern VC funds operate—and the numbers reveal a power balance that’s moving behind closed doors. The Carta 2025 Fund Economics Report uncovers patterns LPs and emerging managers can’t afford to ignore, from growing anchor dominance to slowing deployment cycles.
• Anchor LPs are taking over.
Median anchor checks now represent 22%+ of fund size, while LP counts have dropped sharply (page 2).
• Smaller funds feel the squeeze.
Late capital calls are 2× more common in sub-$10M funds (page 5).
• Deployment is no longer predictable.
The once-steady curve has fractured; 2021–2022 vintages show rapid early deployment followed by dramatic slowdowns (pages 6–7).
• Fees stay stable, but pressure builds.
Management fees cluster around 2%, yet step-down structures and operating expenses increasingly shape real fund economics (pages 8–15).
Fund economics are no longer “set-and-forget.”
They’re a strategic differentiator—and understanding these shifts is now table-stakes for founders, LPs, and emerging fund managers.
Get deeper charts, benchmarks, and insights directly from Carta.
Download the Carta 2025 Fund Economics Report ebook now and stay ahead of the curve. 👇
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🚀 Top 8 lessons from 1000+ YC startups
🚀 Top 8 lessons from 1000+ YC startups by Dalton Caldwell
Some lessons only emerge after thousands of founder conversations—and Dalton Caldwell has had more than almost anyone in Silicon Valley. After advising 1000+ YC startups and 35+ unicorns, his insights reveal repeating patterns behind the companies that break out… and the ones that quietly fade.
• Survival is a strategy
Winning often begins with simply not dying before traction hits.
• Quitting is a skill
The best founders know when to stop digging a hole.
• Smart pivots follow signals
Clear customer pull and painful stagnation often trigger the right move.
• Certain ideas are tar pits
They look shiny but trap founders in years of slow death.
• Investors reject for predictable reasons
TAM, team clarity, and traction explain most “no’s.”
• Delegation can kill early teams
Over-handoff breaks velocity long before scale.
• Great customer conversations matter
The fastest-growing startups learn directly from real users, daily.
Successful founders aren’t lucky—they’re disciplined. They avoid traps, act quickly on evidence, and survive long enough to win.
📥 Download the Full Breakdown
Get the complete insights and examples behind all eight lessons.
👉 Download the “Top 8 Lessons from 1000+ YC Startups” ebook now.
💰 25 Tips from Paul to Hack Fundraising
🥇 25 Tips from Paul to Hack Fundraising
Few people have influenced early-stage fundraising more than Paul Graham. After helping launch 4,000+ startups worth over $600B, his advice reveals the patterns founders rarely notice—but absolutely need. These 25 tips cut through noise and expose the mindsets that separate successful fundraisers from stalled ones.
• Fundraise with intention
You’re either in fundraising mode or building—never both.
• Drive every meeting forward
Always ask investors what the next step is before leaving the room.
• Leverage comes from strength
Profitability—even small—shifts power dramatically.
• Know when to walk away
If momentum dies, stop. Don’t chase unlikely checks.
• Build first, raise second
Obsessing over fundraising signals weakness. The product is the pitch.
• Treat capital as finite
Operate as if no more money is coming.
Great fundraisers aren’t smooth talkers—they’re disciplined executors who control their focus, time, and leverage.
📥 Download the Full Playbook
Get all 25 of Paul’s tactical, founder-proven fundraising tips.
Download the “25 Tips from Paul to Hack Fundraising” ebook now.
🚀 The AI Meeting Tools Everyone Wants
📈 How Top Teams Run Better Meetings
Meetings are no longer just conversations—they’re becoming data-rich, automated engines for clarity and action. With AI-powered tools now handling transcription, summaries, task extraction, and speaker insights, teams can finally focus on decision-making instead of documentation.
🔍 What This Edition Highlights
• Smarter Note-Taking — tools like Otter, Fireflies, and tl;dv capture context, key moments, and follow-ups automatically
• Productivity Boosters — assistants such as Sembly, Avoma, and Fathom turn meetings into actionable plans
• Analytics & Insights — platforms like MeetGeek and Poised provide sentiment, performance, and communication analysis
• Specialized Use Cases — Rewatch for video libraries, Jamworks for students, Scribe for instant documentation
💡 Why It Matters
AI meeting assistants remove the busywork that slows teams down, making every conversation more productive, accountable, and searchable.
Explore the full breakdown of 20+ top AI meeting tools, share the list with your team, and upgrade your workflow with assistants that save hours every week. The smartest teams aren’t meeting more—they’re meeting better.
🚀 Inside ElevenLabs’ $6.6B Pitch
🚀 Inside the Pitch That Sparked a $6.6B Rocketship
Some decks raise money. Others ignite movements. ElevenLabs’ pre-seed pitch did both—propelling the team from a $2M raise at a $9M valuation to $200M ARR and a $6.6B valuation in under three years. Backed by a16z, ICONIQ, Sequoia, and Nat Friedman, their trajectory shows what happens when storytelling, product clarity, and GTM precision align.
• A differentiated problem narrative
Voice was “broken”—AI could redefine it. The framing created urgency.
• A product creators couldn’t ignore
Early adopters became ElevenLabs’ growth accelerators.
• A vision investors feared missing
A roadmap big enough for category leadership, not incremental wins.
ElevenLabs isn’t an anomaly—it's a blueprint. And it’s just one example among hundreds of high-performing decks.
📚 Extra Resource: Access 490+ Pitch Decks
Explore real decks that raised millions, shaped industries, and landed top-tier investors. Perfect for founders refining their narrative or gearing up to fundraise.
👉 Explore ElevenLabs' Pre-Seed Deck: From $2M to $6.6B Valuation in Less Than 3 Years
🔁 ICYMI — Founder Favorites You Shouldn’t Miss
These high-impact guides, investor lists, and fundraising playbooks continue to help founders sharpen strategy, close capital, and build with clarity. Each one unlocks insights that ambitious operators rely on to stay competitive.
🔥 The Ultimate Fundraising Resource Stack
A complete toolkit to level up your fundraising workflow.
👉 Explore the full resource stack
⚡ The Most Overlooked Key to Fundraising Success
YC’s hidden mental model that top founders use to win early.
👉 Learn the YC mindset shift
💡 What Sam Altman Wants Every Founder to Know
A concise playbook for building in the AI era.
👉 See Altman’s founder principles
📊 Venture Math Demystified — How VCs Really Value Startups
Understand valuation the way investors actually do.
👉 Break down VC math
🏦 100+ VCs & Accelerators You Should Know
A high-signal directory of investors actively backing high-growth founders.
👉 See the full investor list
🔥 Ben Horowitz’s High-Stakes Leadership Playbook
How elite founders lead under pressure and build resilient teams.
👉 Study the leadership framework
💰 29 Angels & VCs Funding AI Startups Right Now
A curated list of investors currently writing AI checks.
👉 Find AI-focused investors
📈 50 Recently Funded B2B Startups
A signal-rich snapshot of emerging trends and fresh opportunities.
👉 See recently funded startups
👼 Top 300 Angel Investors Database
A curated list of high-signal angels across sectors.
👉 See the top 300
🔥 Top 500 Active Angel Investors Globally
A global view of the investors writing the most checks.
👉 Browse the top 500
💎 Top 100 Angel Investors Database
A focused list of the most influential early-stage angels.
👉 Explore the top 100
📊 Top 200 Most Active Angel Investors
A high-leverage directory for serious fundraising outreach.
👉 View the top 200
Dive into these high-value resources, bookmark the ones that sharpen your strategy, and share the list with founders in your network who are raising, building, or scaling. The right insight at the right moment can change everything.
🔥WEB PICKS
🚗 Rivian to Ship AI Assistant to Every EV (2026)
Rivian will roll out a built-in AI assistant across all existing vehicles, powered by its new Unified Intelligence platform + Google Gemini. Drivers will control car functions, apps, and workflows using a full agentic framework.
🌐 Google Drops “Disco” — Tabs Become AI Apps
Google launched Disco, a Gemini experiment in Chrome that transforms open tabs into GenTabs: lightweight, interactive AI apps. Users can even build custom tools using simple prompts.
🎥 Runway Unveils GWM-1 + Gen-4.5 With Native Audio
Runway released GWM-1, a physics-aware world model for realistic simulations. Its upgraded Gen-4.5 now generates visuals and audio together — no more stitching sound in post.
🏆 TIME Names “Architects of AI” as Person of the Year
Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Lisa Su, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Fei-Fei Li — honored for shaping global policy, infrastructure, and the future of AI.
🛡️ Stanford’s Artemis Bot Beats Human Hackers
An AI hacking agent, Artemis, outperformed nine out of ten professional penetration testers — at a fraction of the cost. Offensive AI capabilities are accelerating fast.
🧪 Medra Raises $52M for Autonomous Bio Labs
Medra is building one of the largest AI-run labs in the U.S., where robots conduct and refine biological experiments end-to-end, speeding up drug discovery.
🤖 Waymo Robotaxi Delivers a Baby
A passenger in labor gave birth inside a Waymo robotaxi on the way to UCSF. Remote support detected “unusual activity,” alerted 911, and the autonomous car completed the trip safely.
⚖️ States Warn AI Giants Over Safety Failures
U.S. attorneys general issued a formal warning to Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google over “delusional” chatbot outputs linked to suicides and harm — demanding stronger safeguards and audits by mid-January.
