How to Use LinkedIn to Build Credibility and Attract LPs
Why LinkedIn Matters for Fund Managers
Most LPs will check your LinkedIn before they take a call with you.
If your profile is weak, they’ll pass.
If you’re invisible online, they’ll forget you exist.
If you’re not building credibility, you’re losing opportunities.
Here’s the good news: LinkedIn is free, and the playbook works.
Recent results from managers who followed this guide:
→ Genevieve LeMarchal’s story post received 41,000+ impressions
→ Joyce-Ann Wainaina’s story post received 23,000+ impressions
→ Prateek Sharma’s story post received 16,000+ impressions
What did they do?
Had optimized profiles
Commented from their personal accounts (not company pages)
Reshared and amplified posts about them
Posted their own content consistently
This guide will take you 10 minutes to read.…
Category: Insights
“I believe that everyone has a company in them that only they can build.”
AI has been credited with making San Francisco hot again. People who drifted away during the pandemic to work from anywhere or try to colonize new hotspots like Miami have returned in droves, bringing traffic, house prices, and valuations soaring once again.
So it was a surprise to hear the latest hot AI startup say this: “This company couldn’t have been built in Silicon Valley.”
Last week, at our final Venture Underground event of the year, Decile Group CEO Adeo Ressi interviewed Boardy CEO Andrew D’Souza. Boardy is an AI that acts as a super-connector, having conversations with founders and investors to understand what makes them unique, then making warm introductions between the right people.…
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Joe Harkins
The best angel investors in the history of Silicon Valley have usually had a really unscientific approach to investing:
Spray and pray.
The odds are so low that they’ll get into the next Google or Facebook that they just place those bets as widely as possible and… pray.
But a new generation of angels has found a cheaper, more efficient way to spray and pray: putting half of their angel funds into a Micro LP allocation instead.
Joe Harkins broke this down at a recent VC Lab event:
“It’s not so much mathematical as it is strategic. You can bet on one company and one founder, or you can bet on a fund with a fund manager that will hopefully have great deal flow and vet hundreds of companies, if not thousands, and ultimately bet on, say, 20 or 30 of those.…
What significantly correlates with early fundraising success?
Early traction is critical for emerging fund managers. In the first few weeks of fundraising, momentum builds credibility, builds confidence, and sets the pace for future LP conversations. But what actually signals success in those first four weeks?
While every fund is different, patterns do emerge. From fund size and LP activity to LinkedIn networks and prior experience, certain indicators show consistent correlations with early soft commitments. Most notably, early traction tends to reflect how well a fund’s strategy aligns with a GP’s current network and resources.This article analyzes data from 600+ emerging funds that successfully completed Decile Group’s VC Lab accelerator, exploring which GP and fund characteristics are most associated with strong fundraising starts and what sets early movers apart.…
Why the wrong fund size could kill your early fundraising momentum.
Every venture capitalist knows that your fund size is your strategy. And that it’s way easier to return 10x on smaller funds than mega-funds.
But the latest analysis from Decile Group shows that micro funds are even better for emerging managers in today’s climate.
We studied 600 emerging funds that went through VC Lab, the “YC of VC” accelerator that has launched more than 1,000 venture funds to date, specifically looking at various factors that might contribute to early traction within the first four weeks of fundraising.
Momentum is crucial in venture capital: Of all the funds Decile admits to the program, statistically only 20% will make it to a final close.…
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Start Lab Cohort 2 – AI Powered Action
Close Your First Fund Before 2025 Ends
The era of doing everything yourself is over.
Launch your venture capital fund through Start Lab Cohort 2, where AI handles the operational complexity so you can focus on what matters: closing LPs and building your portfolio.
Every session is built around action. Every tool is powered by AI. Every sprint moves you closer to closing your first venture fund—before the year ends.
Close Faster Than Ever
We are excited to announce Start Lab Cohort 2, the accelerator program designed for aspiring fund managers who want to close their first fund before 2025 ends.
The window is now.
Our data shows the final two weeks of December are among the most active for fundraising.…
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Ariel Segal Eck
Ariel Segal comes from a long line of industrial entrepreneurs. Her great-grandfather invented a stainless steel flexible gas connector that was placed in industrial kitchens all over the country, and when her father took over the small Pittsburgh business, he scaled it into something global.
Everything was “the factory” in their home growing up. She even remembers her dad taking her whole class on field trips there. He would introduce her to all of the different departments, explaining each of their roles. Ariel was always drawn to the marketing team: Their jet set life to conventions and trade shows, their mission to weave the products of the company into a story the market would buy.
By the time Ariel made it into the world of entrepreneurship, it was less about inventing things out of stainless steel and factories, and more about software and venture capital.…
Closing the deal isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of a long relationship.Follow-up involves protecting your investment, supporting founders, and keep-ing LPs informed. The quality of your follow-up determines not just portfolio outcomes, but also your reputation as a disciplined, trusted, long-term partner.
This article outlines how to safeguard your position, add value without overreaching, maintain strong LP communication, and use post-investment insight to refine your dealflow strategy.
Protect Your Investment
Once the deal closes, your first responsibility is making sure the investment you’ve made stays protected.
Monitor company health. Stay aware of key developments, challenges, and pivots. Establish a regular cadence of updates, even informal, to spot red flags early.
Stay aware of follow-on rounds. To track the performance of your portfolio, and to log markups, knowing about follow-on rounds (and having proper documentation) is critical.…
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Martin Tobias
In my role as a marketing strategist for Decile Group, I do a lot of case studies on emerging managers and LPs.
A lot of emerging managers talk about their abilities to squeeze into hot deals, because of their non-threatening check sizes, or the importance of getting into deals that are about to get a big mark-up, so that they can post a quick win.
You can see their logic. Emerging managers have a tight window to build a track record before they raise their next fund, and there are only so many variables you can control in the startup game. Stacking the deck with some near wins is understandable. And no one ever faulted anyone for investing alongside a Sequoia, a Benchmark, an Andreessen Horowitz. …
Understanding Overseas Accredited and Qualified Investor Requirements
The global venture capital industry is experiencing a dramatic shift as participation from non-traditional players (i.e., non-institutional fund investors), such as family offices and high-net-worth individuals, continues to grow. However, raising capital from overseas investors remains complex and costly due to differing regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions. In most countries, investors must satisfy accredited or qualified investor criteria, or similar regulatory standards, in order to invest in offshore funds. Failure to meet such regulatory requirements can expose fund managers to potentially severe risks and legal consequences, including regulatory fines, restrictions on future fundraising, and reputational damage.
Many countries allow funds to be marketed through private placements without a full offering prospectus or fund registration with regulatory agencies if the offer is restricted to certain types of sophisticated or high-net-worth investors, as they are considered capable of evaluating investment risks without full regulatory protections.…
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Decile Group launches the Fund Finder
Decile Group has helped launch more than 1,000 emerging venture funds by steadily removing costs, hassles, barriers of entry, and biases associated with fund formation. Today, we are announcing the next pivotal step in our plan to help launch 10,000 new funds in the next decade, Decile Fund Finder.
This one-of-a-kind marketplace will allow high net worth limited partners to browse a directory of cutting edge emerging managers as they are raising and deploying brand new funds, built with Decile’s low-cost, low-administrative set up Start Fund product.
These Start Funds are professional grade venture funds, but they are often less than $10 million, and can accept LP checks as low as $10,000, ushering a new age of the MicroLP, thanks to dramatically lower startup and administration costs.…
Are younger managers taking over and rewriting old VC rules?
The Next Wave Is Younger. The share of GPs under 40 has grown 1.6x since 2022 — now nearly on par with the historically dominant 40–50 group. Younger leadership is gaining ground fast across both individual GPs and fund teams.
Younger GPs Drive Inclusion. Funds with average GP age under 40 are 1.2x more likely to include a woman than those aged 40–50, and 1.8x more likely than those 50+. Gender diversity is strongest in younger, mixed-gender teams.
Younger funds close bigger and faster. Younger GPs set smaller targets and accept smaller checks — but convert faster and close more capital. Their funds close in 10 weeks on average, and reach $3.7MM in signed LPAs — 1.7x more than funds led by GPs 50+.…
Are long résumés still necessary for fundraising success?
Experience has long been a gatekeeper in venture capital. Historically, launching a fund was a privilege reserved for former partners, career VCs, or those with deep ties to the industry. But the landscape is changing. More emerging managers are entering venture without prior VC experience — and they’re performing better than many might expect.
While funds led by experienced GPs still make up the majority, the share of “inexperienced” teams — those without prior work experience in VC — has steadily grown. These managers are launching leaner, faster funds and are finding smart ways to close the gap in terms of performance outcomes.This article draws on data from 600+ emerging funds that successfully completed Decile Group’s VC Lab accelerator program between 2022 and 2025, exploring how prior VC experience relates to who launches emerging funds, how those funds are structured and positioned, and the patterns observed in their early fundraising outcomes.…
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Jukka Alanen
“I was developing a new vision for venture capital and I wanted to build it from the ground up.”
When you meet Jukka Alanen the word “rebel” doesn’t exactly spring to mind. He dresses in starched dress shirts and blazers. He started his career at McKinsey & Company. And his last job before starting his own venture fund, was an SVP of PagerDuty, a publicly traded tech company.
But after helping build three tech companies that collectively amounted to $3.5 billion in exits and years of AI operations and process automations under his belt, Jukka was being recruited by plenty of the big venture capital firms.
He rebelled to start his own.
And he turned to VC Lab to start Rebellion Ventures. …
“Start Fund was the only thing that would work.”
Radhika Iyengar and Jorden Woods had tire kicked the idea of starting a venture fund for the better part of the last decade.
Finally, in 2025, they were ready. They had the fund name. They got accepted to VC Lab. They knew exactly what their thesis would be. They knew some of the early limited partners they would reach out to first. Most importantly: There were a handful of very hot deals they were eager to invest in, and they were lucky enough to have access, thanks to decades of working in their field.
One of those things was a “good problem to have.”
Access to several hot new deals.
You wouldn’t expect that would be a negative for a new venture capital fund.…
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Q1 2026 Venture Trends
It’s time for our quarterly trend survey, and we have a feeling once again it’ll be dominated by two letters: AI.
The final quarter of 2025 will be remembered as the moment venture capital finally catapulted into the modern era. . . well half of the industry did. Ironically, the other half of the industry that is supposed to be funding the future is refusing to jump into the future itself. This is to say nothing of what’s happening within venture capital portfolios, where everyone seems to agree that AI is a trend no one can afford to miss out on.
But that can’t be everything going on in the industry. This isn’t a community of group think. Fill in the survey and let us know what you are seeing.…
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Varun Turlapati
“Start small. Start something. It was a game changer for me.”
The earliest thing that Varun Turlapati can remember dreaming of doing was being a train conductor. Growing up in India, he loved the idea of being at the front of a huge, powerful locomotive, as it barreled through unknown lands, carrying people to new places to explore.
“I think in some ways, that dream is still carrying me forward,” he says. “I don’t have an actual train, but I have been a software engineer for about sixteen years and now I get to invest in companies that are changing the world.”
Varun started working in startups in 2015. He had just moved to California and didn’t even know what venture capitalists were back then.…
“Thank God you guys came up with Start Fund this year.”
People like to say the startup ecosystem is all about a high tolerance for failure. Still, people often try to spin it. Or at least, they don’t lead with their failures in an interview.
Galit Flasterstein isn’t one of those people.
“The first run I took at VC Lab, I couldn’t finish it,” she says. “I am very transparent about this. I just couldn’t figure out what my secret sauce was. I was like, ‘OK you are asking me about my track record? I have none. I don’t know a thousand LPs. I don’t have that many connections.’ They told me to drop out.”
But did she give up? Absolutely not.…
The era of doing everything yourself is over.
Launch venture capital funds with an AI cofounder through VC Lab Cohort 20. Our agentic AI capabilities transform Decile Hub from a platform of tools into an intelligent partner that handles the operational burden of launching and running a venture firm.
Cofound your VC with AI
We are excited to announce VC Lab Cohort 20, the first accelerator program designed to help emerging managers launch venture capital firms with artificial intelligence as a true operational cofounder. The shift from AI tools to AI agents represents the most significant transformation in how venture capital firms operate since the asset class was invented.
The traditional path to launching a venture firm required either hiring expensive associates to handle operational tasks or spending countless hours on administrative work yourself.…
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Next Gen VC
The venture capital industry is experiencing a fundamental transformation as a new generation of fund managers emerges to challenge traditional investment paradigms. Next Gen VCs represent a distinct category of venture capital firms characterized by smaller fund sizes, deep sector specialization, and modern operational approaches that leverage technology and streamlined processes. These emerging managers typically operate funds under $25 million, focus on specific industries or demographics, and employ innovative strategies to identify and support early-stage companies.
This evolution reflects broader changes in the startup ecosystem, where traditional large-scale venture capital firms often struggle to serve niche markets, underrepresented founders, and emerging sectors effectively. Next Gen VCs fill these gaps by combining domain expertise with agile decision-making processes, creating more accessible entry points for entrepreneurs while generating competitive returns for limited partners.…