Разработка ПО
Менеджмент
Для компаний
Для стартапов
Архитектура ПО
The idea here is not in the news itself, but in where unnecessary costs can be removed and investments recovered faster. Market signal: package the signal into a product.
Оглавление
Need a consultation on design? Free consultation
The strongest version of the “era of consensus capital” is to package this into a product with a clear package, price, and short deal cycle. Consulting and software services that help startups get on the radar of the top 5 venture funds become more valuable than 90% of startups trying to raise rounds.
What happened
According to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor for Q1 2026, 73.1% of all LP investor capital went to just five venture funds. Five companies — OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Waymo, and Databricks — accounted for $195.6 billion in investments, which is roughly 75% of the total volume of venture deals. The total venture volume in the first quarter reached $285–331 billion — an all-time record. At the same time, the number of deals fell by 15% quarter over quarter, to approximately 7,000 globally — the lowest level since 2016.
Rounds from $100 million account for 86% of all dollars invested. In other words: more money than ever, but fewer deals than in the last ten years.
How this is useful for business
For an entrepreneur who is not working on frontier AI infrastructure, this means a specific market shift. Funds with $300 million AUM are now in a zone that received only 11.5% of LP capital in Q1 2026. This does not make them bad investors, but it affects their ability to follow-on — the ability to support portfolio companies in subsequent rounds. For a B2B startup growing 80% year over year, a $50 million round is still realistic, but it requires a different fundraising strategy than three years ago.
A fund that did not make the top 5 now has to prove its value to founders directly, not through brand and FOMO.
How to make money from this
The key opportunity is to become the infrastructure between startups and top funds. Funds spend time on sourcing, but now they have less bandwidth for deep due diligence. Services that filter, prepare, and position startups for specific funds become indispensable. Model: subscription $2,000–5,000 per month for access to warm introductions or retainer $15,000–30,000 for successful placement in a round. Unit economics with 15–20% conversion and an average check of $20,000 is $3,000–4,000 per client.
With a flow of 20–30 qualified leads per month, revenue is $60,000–120,000.
Business ideas
1. Data aggregator platform on the preferences of top funds — which stages, industries, and check sizes they are closing in the current quarter. Subscription $500–1,500 per month for founders and advisors. Sales channel — LinkedIn, newsletters to a database of rounds from Crunchbase.
2. AI-powered pitch deck analyzer trained on successful pitches from top-5 funds. Free entry, $299–799 for a detailed report with recommendations. Conversion from free users to paid users is 3–5% with good product-market fit.
3. Consulting service “LP-ready due diligence package” — preparation of documents, financial models, and market research in the format institutional investors expect. Price $8 000–15 000 per project, deal cycle 2–4 weeks.
4. Match-making service between growing startups and specialized regional funds that did not make it into the top-5 but have available capital. Success fee — 1–2% of the round amount.
5. Educational product — a course or workshop “How to get on top funds’ radar without an AI focus.” Price $1 500–3 000, format 4–6 weeks. Channel — organic content on Twitter/X and podcasts for founders.
Risks and limitations
The venture market is cyclical. When the AI boom stabilizes, concentration may weaken, and demand for round-raising infrastructure may decline. Regulatory pressure on the largest funds is also unpredictable. Competition in the pitch preparation niche is growing — it is necessary to build differentiation through expertise in specific industries or regions. Finally, success depends on the state of the market: if rounds become rare, even the best service cannot be sold.
7-day action plan
Day 1–2: Gather data on 10–15 top funds — their focus areas, average check sizes, and typical deal signals from open sources. Day 3: Identify 2–3 niches where capital concentration is felt most strongly and formulate an MVP hypothesis. Day 4–5: Create a landing page describing the service and a lead capture form, write 3–5 LinkedIn or Twitter posts with insights from the data. Day 6: Conduct 5–10 calls with founders who are currently raising rounds, collect feedback on pain points.
Day 7: Adjust the offer, set prices, and launch the first paid pilot with 2–3 clients at a reduced price to obtain case studies.
Original news: SaaStr · See other news in the news section.
