We’re finally starting to see a contraction towards pragmatic efficiency in the VC market.

Globally, venture-capital investment in the first half of this year was $144bn, less than half of the $293bn raised by startups in the same period in 2022. Companies that do manage to raise funds are seeing their valuations squeezed.

This shouldn’t be seen as a trend — doing more with less is accelerating as a result of factors like AI usage and Wall Street favoring profitability vs unsustainable growth.