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AVC | Startup Mortality Rates

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A friend of mine stopped by the USV office the other morning and asked me about startup mortality rates. Her business sells to startups and big companies in roughly equal measure and she told me they were seeing a rising rate of startups closing up (and thus churning as customers). While churn is never good, you really can't beat yourself up too much about your customers going out of business. She wanted to know what we are seeing. Our portfolio has been relatively free of startup mortality in the last couple of years but it is something we expect for, plan for, and underwrite for. I have always said this, on my blog and in person, about what we have seen at USV and what I have seen in other early stage venture funds I've worked on and invested in: 1/3 are good investments 1/3 turn into something but you wish you hadn't made the investment 1/3 are zeros Another friend of mine asked me a similar question via email this week and pointed me to something out of Nate Silver's book, On the E

Startup Mortality Rates A friend of mine stopped by the USV office the other morning and asked me about startup mortality rates. Her business sells to startups and big companies in roughly equal measure and she told me they were seeing a rising rate of startups closing up (and thus churning as customers). While churn is never good, you really can't beat yourself up too much about your customers going out of business. She wanted to know what we are seeing. Our portfolio has been relatively free of startup mortality in the last couple of years but it is something we expect for, plan for, and und

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