Founders and Investors Do Not Share Wall Street's Optimism, New Survey Finds

Ben Bergman

Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.

Founders and Investors Do Not Share Wall Street's Optimism, New Survey Finds

Valuations are dropping substantially, pessimism about the economy is growing, and most VCs remain skeptical about investing in fully remote companies. Those are some of the sobering findings of a new survey released Tuesday of 141 VCs and 461 seed and series-A founders by NFX, an early-stage firm based in San Francisco.

The firm first performed the survey in early April – during the relatively early days of the coronavirus pandemic – and decided to follow up last week to see how sentiments have changed. It found that over that time, founders and investors have become more pessimistic about how long it will take the economy to recover. Perhaps not surprisingly, founders remain more optimistic than VCs. Wall Street has also been far more hopeful of a quick recovery, though this survey was conducted June 3rd, before May's shockingly positive jobs numbers were released.


Fundraising is a mixed bag, with about half of founders saying they are moving up their raises and the other half saying they will delay or stop raising money.

Here are some of the key findings:

  • 60% of VCs have seen valuations drop by 20-30% so far as a result of COVID-19 and they predict additional declines over the next year.
  • Though 74% of founders plan to move to majority or fully remote work, nearly 60% of VCs say that remote teams are less attractive as investments. Only 9% say remote teams make them more likely to invest.
  • 40% of tech founders have reported no change to revenue while 20% have reported an increase in revenue.
  • 60% of founders are still hiring, but half of those say they're offering lower salaries.
  • 60% of founders give the federal government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic a D or F failing grade.





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LA Tech ‘Moves’: Mapp Gains New CPO and CTO, Prodoscore Taps Boeing Exec

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: Mapp Gains New CPO and CTO, Prodoscore Taps Boeing Exec
LA Tech ‘Moves’:

“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.

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This Week in ‘Raises’: GITAI Lands $30M, Steno Gains $15M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Raises
Image by Joshua Letona

A local space robotics startup raised fresh funding to expand the flight model manufacturing facilities throughout the U.S. and increase employment, while a remote litigation platform raised more funding to continue growing its footprint in new markets across the country, develop service channels for its clients and continue expanding its tech team.

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Gitai Raises $30 Million to Expand Manufacturing Footprint in Los Angeles

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Gitai Raises $30 Million to Expand Manufacturing Footprint in Los Angeles
\u200bPhoto: Gitai

Space robotics company Gitai raised a $30 million Series B extension this week, bringing the total value of the round to roughly $47 million.

The funding will be used to further develop Gitai’s suite of space robots as well as build out its manufacturing footprint in Torrance. Previously Gitai announced it raised a $17.1 million Series B in March 2021; this additional raise is still part of that round.

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