VC Lab Blog
Strategies, playbooks, and stories from emerging fund managers, LPs, and the broader venture ecosystem.
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September 3, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Tal Schwartz
Tal Schwartz spent a decade chronicling Canadian fintech before turning that vantage point into a fund. His contrarian read: Canada trailing the US on financial policy isn't a handicap, it's a map of what's coming next.
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September 3, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Javier Cueto
Javier Cueto opens his LP pitch by taking the unicorn off the table. After more than a decade watching Latin American startups succeed and fail up close, he makes the case for a different return model built on sustainable companies and real acquirers.
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September 3, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Eran Savir
Most seed investors treat a great founding team as the whole thesis. Eran Savir of Savyon Ventures argues that's exactly how VCs lose money, and that revenue from real strangers is the only proof that counts.
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September 1, 2026
Lines, Not Dots: How to Follow Up With LPs After an Event
The event was a dot. Commitments come from the line. The exact follow-up system for turning event conversations with LPs into calls, PACTs, and wires.
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September 1, 2026
How to Close a VC Fund: A Step-by-Step Guide from Adeo Ressi
Closing a fund is a sales process with known conversion rates and a known sequence. Adeo Ressi walks through the exact playbook built from helping close thousands of funds.
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August 30, 2026
The Venture Fund of Funds: What It Buys and What It Costs
A fund of funds buys diversification and access, and charges a second layer of fees for it. Here is the trade, with the arithmetic.
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August 30, 2026
VC Check Size: The Arithmetic Behind Every Investment
VC check size is an output, not a preference. The math from fund size to initial check, what $25K to $100K buys, reserves, ownership and the common mistakes.
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August 30, 2026
TVPI, DPI and MOIC: What Venture Fund Metrics Actually Tell You
TVPI is a claim and DPI is a fact. What each venture fund metric measures, how the J-curve moves them, and which numbers you can actually defend to LPs.
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August 30, 2026
The Solo GP: How One Person Runs a Venture Fund
61% of new VC Lab managers are solo GPs. Here is the economics, the operating load, what actually breaks, and how LPs diligence a one-person fund.
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August 30, 2026
The Pre-Seed Fund: How to Start and Run One
A pre-seed fund writes the first institutional check. Here is how to size one, construct the portfolio, raise it from LPs, and run it without breaking.
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August 30, 2026
Zombie Funds: What They Are and How to Avoid Running One
A zombie fund still exists but no longer invests. Here is how funds drift into it, how to diagnose one, and what a clean finish looks like instead.
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August 30, 2026
The Local Venture Capital Fund: Why Proximity Wins at Pre-Seed
A local venture capital fund sees founders before anyone outside has heard of them. Here is why proximity is a real edge at pre-seed, and how to structure one.
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August 30, 2026
Non-Consensus Investing: Where the Real Opportunity Still Lives
Non-consensus and right is where venture returns come from. Here is why that edge now sits almost entirely at pre-seed, and how to underwrite it.
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August 30, 2026
The Small Fund Advantage: What Sub $10M Funds Do That Large Funds Cannot
A sub $10M fund is not a big fund that failed to raise. It is a different instrument, and here is the arithmetic that proves it.
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August 30, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Vijay Rajendran and Amit Goel of gAI Ventures Fund
The co-founders of gAI Ventures Fund explain why they build pre-seed vertical AI companies from scratch alongside domain experts, putting the vertical first and the AI second.
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August 30, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Nathan Maton
Basal Capital founder Nathan Maton is building a US pre-seed and seed fund around a single conviction: the most resilient repeat founders in FinTech and AI are underserved at the earliest stage, and getting into their next round is about who you already know.
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August 30, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Vineet Shah
After 18 years building frontier industrial businesses from the inside, Vineet Shah launched 8 Clockwise Fund I to finance the founders decarbonizing the world's hardest industries.
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August 30, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Genevieve LeMarchal
Genevieve LeMarchal built Suncoast Ventures into a top-decile seed fund by treating early-stage healthcare not as one risky bucket, but as the underpriced opportunity most generalist VCs walk right past.
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August 24, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Anca Burke and Andrey Mikhalchuk
Two operators turned investors are building ARTA Ventures to move capital in the DMV toward applied AI that people can touch, feel, and test in the room.
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August 24, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Mike Keymer
Mike Keymer spent two decades commercializing deep technology before launching Alphaket, a $5 million seed fund backing the infrastructure that will bring quantum computing into real commercial use.
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August 24, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Ryan Else
Roadster Capital's Ryan Else is betting that the real returns are hiding in America's factories, defense contractors, and industrial supply chains, and he's already backed one multi-billion dollar unicorn to prove it.
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August 24, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Garrett Smith
Garrett Smith exited two medtech startups for a combined $600M, then built ReefHaven Ventures to write the first institutional check into founders at the convergence of biology, robotics, and AI.
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August 21, 2026
Emerging Manager LPs: Why Your First Investors Are People You Already Know
Venture has split into two industries, and most public fundraising advice belongs to the other one. Here's why the LP who writes your first check is someone who already knows you.
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August 20, 2026
Top Decile Podcast: Fehmida Kapadia
Fehmida Kapadia spent two decades advising MedTech startups before launching Fay Ventures, a seed fund backing US AI-enabled MedTech founders stuck in the gap between working prototype and FDA clearance. On the Top Decile Podcast, she explains why so few VCs touch the space.
