The significant valuation step ups of later stage startups made large chunks of capital available, resulting in more money being raised in earlier stage venture and enabling new startups at an earlier stage because of all the crossover money that started to come in. This has led to earlier stage SaaS companies being worth much more, and single GP brand people who know the business category providing expert series A and seed capital to founders.
The proliferation of capital and the vast amounts of money being invested in later-stage startups has led to some of that money trickling down to earlier stage startups, enabling their growth and development.
David Sacks advises SaaS founders to take seed capital and series A from an experienced, single GP who knows their business category well, and not to worry too much about dilution in the IPO process, but to focus on diversifying stock ownership.
In this podcast, one of the hosts describes a bird's beak and compares it to another beak. They also share a story about a Pipe beak wedding.
Pipe offers a platform for SaaS companies to monetize their customer contracts in advance by connecting them with investors, allowing companies to pay for their customer acquisition costs without diluting themselves with venture capital.