📶 Benchmark (finally) changes something

Together with

Good morning 👋

When you think of Benchmark, you know what you’re getting.

The fund has kept their fund sizes and investment strategy consistent for decades, so if and when they ever change things up, we pay attention.

Their latest regulatory filings showed a new partners-only fund that is currently being raised, so we’ve spent the past couple of hours figuring out what that’s all about.

Let’s get into it.

P.S. 💰 Are you a full-time investor AND do you want to get paid more?

Help answer our VC comp survey so we can help you get paid a better market rate.

While other VC firms have raised billions and watched their AUM balloon, Benchmark is sticking to its playbook: keep it small and keep their conviction high.

The fund raised its standard $425 million fund over the summer, but there was an additional wrinkle in this fund that was different from others in the past. Behind the scenes, Benchmark is quietly raising an additional $170 million for its Founders’ Fund I- a pot primarily made up of the partners’ own cash.

This fund, as revealed in regulatory filings, is expected to funded by partners-only, with a few seats reserved for friends and family. So, what’s the real play here?

Why it matters: Benchmark’s partners have every reason to double down on their own investments. This “skin in the game” approach keeps them aligned and hungry for outsized returns - without the hassle of managing limited partners' expectations.

It also signals a growing trend in venture capital: firms are opting for alternative structures to keep more control.

Benchmark isn’t the only one doing this. Sequoia’s heritage fund and Homebrew’s decision to go LP-free point to a broader movement of VC firms wanting fewer cooks in the kitchen.

What happens next: We don’t expect many other firms to follow the same trend of raising partner-only funds without outside capital commitments.

How many funds could really do that even if they wanted to?

This really signals a few other things to us:

Read more about Benchmark:

Wokelo helps you move through diligence, faster.

Their software helps you:

✅ Instantly analyze massive datasets
✅ Quickly uncover risks and opportunities
✅ Gather hard-to-find info on any niche topic
✅ Get to conviction (faster)

Stop losing out on deals because your diligence process sucks.

Hyper-accelerate your diligence with Wokelo.

🐝 How beehiiv Grows—Becoming the Sweetest Newsletter Platform: How They Grow examines the all-in-one platform for newsletter operators and how it’s rapidly becoming the most compelling place to write and monetize content on the internet

🛣️ The New Lane to Financial Freedom—Why People Are Broke and What to Do About It: BowTied Bull believes the path to freedom isn’t paved with safe bets but real wealth is built with chaos and uncertainty

1️⃣ No. 1 Customer Acquisition Strategy for New Startups in Crowded Markets: Guillermo Flor shares strategies for finding customers even when market is very crowded and most companies are already using a solution

😎 Will AI Make Professional Services Revenue Cool Again?: Professional services have long been viewed as a necessary evil in the world of software, but for AI companies, they may play a more strategic role in ensuring early success and building trust with customers

💰How Much Do U.S. Product Managers Really Make?: Part 2 of the Lenny’s Newsletter Compensation survey results

Join dozens of high-growth companies partnering with us to reach 15k of some of the most sought-after people in tech and finance.

Talk to our team to learn more.

(Media kit available upon request)

Thanks for reading this far and giving us a little bit of your attention this week.

Feel free to unsubscribe whenever this stops becoming valuable to you.

- Clay

Here are the results from our poll question in yesterday’s piece:

Do you expect more funds to create their own in-house emerging manager programs?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes - absolutely ✅ (6)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ No - not a chance ❌ (3)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Don't know - time will tell 🤷‍♂️ (2)

11 Votes