VCs to look for ‘more discipline’ from startups as ‘Venture Winter’ looms

“I think it will remain challenged, and challenging.”

That’s what Clearco CEO Andrew Curtis had to say about the looming VC winter and how it will affect the investment landscape of the near future.

“I think there will slowly be some growth but I think as we’ve discussed the venture winter here, you can also view it as a return to the mean, or normalization,” added Andrew.

Speaking at Collision in Toronto, Andrew said: “We’re back to where we were in the old days. And VCs are here for a reason and they’ll continue to fund good companies with good ideas. They’ll just do it with more discipline and the companies that they invest in will have to do everything that they do with more discipline.”

The Clearco CEO’s comments come amid a downturn in VC spending over the last year due to ongoing market uncertainty. Paper CEO Philip Cutler echoed Andrew’s sentiments, stating: “You’ve seen a shift in the conversations with the VCs from ‘put money to work and grow no matter what’, to – let’s figure out how to do this in a much more sustainable way, work towards profitability and control your own destiny, so you don’t necessarily have to rely on outside capital.”

When asked on what his advice would be for founders looking to navigate the VC winter, the Paper CEO offered this guidance: “If there are founders out there who are are facing that adversity, you’re really going to have to just stick with it and continue to focus on building your business and have as many conversations as you can possibly have.

“My recommendation is to try and spend some time getting to know the funds that operate a little bit beyond where you are, they’re probably not going to be the ones that lead your round that you’re trying to raise today, but they are going to be watching your business and they’re going to be the ones that are there pre-empting.”

Philip advised that companies should try to find a balance “between being profitable and having good operational rigor within your business, but also investing in the right areas.”

Andrew Curtis agreed, adding: “I think what venture investors are rewarding companies for now is very tight focus, running businesses leanly and not being distracted with extraneous ideas.”

“What does the VC market and markets generally require today? They require focus, rigor, and that kind of resilient determination to do one thing.”

Andrew and Philip’s comments were made as part of a wider discussion on the VC winter at Collision, which is returning to Toronto for its sixth year. Global founders, CEOs, investors and members of the media have come to the city to make deals and experience North America’s thriving tech ecosystem.

More than 1,600 startups are taking part in Collision 2024 – the highest number of startups ever at a Collision event. 45 percent of these are women-founded, and startups have travelled to Toronto from countries including Nigeria, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Ghana, Pakistan and beyond.

In total, more than 37,800 attendees have gathered at the event, as well as 570 speakers and 1,003 members of the media, to explore business opportunities with an international audience.

739 investors are attending Collision, including Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, as well as nine companies on the Forbes Midas List, and 12 investors from those firms.

Top speakers at Collision include:
● Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI
● Maria Sharapova, entrepreneur and tennis legend
● Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere (an AI for enterprise and large language model company, which raised US$450 million at a US$5 billion valuation in June 2024)
● Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi (a Canadian autonomous trucking company)
● Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password (a cloud-based password management tool)
● Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz (a cloud security platform)
● Alex Israel, co-founder and CEO of Metropolis (an AI and computer vision platform)
● Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (an AI chip startup)
● Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans
● Autumn Peltier, Indigenous rights activist

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Useful links
Collision website: https://collisionconf.com/ 
Collision media kit: https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit  
Collision images: https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf 
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