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Saying goodbye to Q1
What a week.
If you were plugged in to the startup news cycle recently, you’ve been busy. Y Combinator dropped hundreds of new startups onto the market, Instacart’s repricing continued to reverberate, and it feels like we’re discovering that some parts of the startup market are already in a period of correction.
That’s starting to feel like a summary of the first quarter: A hot early-stage market and a late-stage startup climate in a cooling period. We’ll better understand the full Q1 picture when we get all the incoming venture capital data, but early marks do match that summary.
What’s ahead is going to prove utterly fascinating. Q2 will see a host of startups need to raise new capital, and many will find the investing landscape utterly foreign compared to when they last looked for capital. What will that force? Will unicorns tap venture debt? Will we see a parade of down-rounds? Smaller inside deals to bolster runway? I don’t know.
Listening between the cracks, the public conversation about a startup pu …
