Looking to change the world for the better through technology, investing & partnerships. MD @ LGT Capital Partners. ✍️ at @Open_LP , Co-host Origins Podcast 🎤
Austin / ✈️
- Tweets 6,860
- Following 1,128
- Followers 17,314
- Likes 40,739
👋 SF, I'm back!
Just recorded my first Origins Pod from the new LGT office in downtown SF. Been a wild couple of weeks launching my son to college and a big move back to the Bay, but so happy to call this place home (again!) 🌁
40
2
190
9,819
“We spend much more time on asset allocation and why things are where they are than we do on individual mgrs.”
David Morehead (CIO) looks at @Baylor's $2.6B endowment holistically. He’s the GM of the baseball team, with each mgr on the field hired to play a position for a particular reason.
"If my third baseman thinks he can play second better than my second baseman, come talk to me. But if I come onto the field and he's left third open and I have two second basemen, he’s fired, full stop.”
A great analogy for why doing what you said you’d do matters.
👏 TY @HarryStebbings bringing the LP mindset to 20VC.
1/ “There’s a rule in our office that you’re not allowed to talk ab returns without also talking ab time.”
David Morehead, CIO of @Baylor, joins @HarryStebbings to offer rare transparency into how a $2.6B endowment approaches venture, portfolio construction & mgr selection👇
6
2
12
1,925
Building an enduring venture firm is never easy, especially in today’s environment.
Emerging Manager Circle (EMC) gives EMs a community to swap notes, learn from experienced GPs who have been through it & hear from the LPs backing them.
EMs: Don’t miss the window to apply! 👇
🚨Calling all emerging mgrs! Applications now open to one of the biggest VC EM events of the year: 11/4/26
@EqualVentures' Emerging Manager Circle (EMC) brings EMs together w peers & experienced GPs/LPs to share insights on building enduring venture firms.
🙏TY to this year’s inaugural selection committee of 40 respected GPs and LPs for helping build this community.
🔗Link to apply below!🗽🍎
10
6
77
8,049
🧵We talk a lot about conviction investing in early stage venture & I have seen many examples of it - but rarely do they come close to @Joshuabrowder.
(How many other VCs move a founder in with them??)
Early signs say... it is serving him extremely well.
New Origins Pod ⬇️
1
1
23
1,506
5/ a lot more in the episode on what it looks like to build a venture firm around your own instincts rather than the industry playbook.
Josh calls it a “one-person YC,” which feels 🎯
1
113
6/ I hate missing a fabulous Origins guest recording, you shouldn’t – listen to the pod.
🙏 @nchirls & @Joshuabrowder for this 💎 of an episode
Excited to be back on the next!
piped.video/watch?v=e9R8Fq3V…
2
211
Yup. And even more difficult is repeating strong returns fund over fund.
Next time you hear a GP predict their new fund will hit 5x or an LP say they are targeting 5x returns from VC, just show them this table from @PeterJ_Walker
Exceptional returns from venture are possible. But, by definition, they are the exception, not the norm.
6
4
61
17,940
The best partner diligence often isn't a weekend offsite or a list of 50 questions. It's years of watching how someone thinks, operates & makes decisions.
So when @Nchirls asked me if Thomas Kristensen and I did the rite of passage "50 Qs" exercise before Sapphire joined forces with LGT Capital Partners, I could confidently say we didn't need to.
🎧New 9-min Origins minisode on team & philosophical alignment
4
2
25
2,531
YouTube: piped.video/watch?v=JLXmIQ16…
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6jT…
Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
1
2
1
463
A few weeks ago I asked @pavelprata whether the barbell effect we’re seeing today looked anything like 2021 based on the H1 2026 fundraising data he pulled. Yesterday, he delivered.
His framing of today's fundraising market as "concentration inside a contraction" is a succinct way to describe what many LPs are seeing. Fundraising isn't just slowing. Capital is concentrating among fewer managers as fewer funds successfully close.
There's still work to understand exactly where the pressure is greatest across mgr cohorts and vintages, but the below analysis is a thoughtful contribution.
Look fwd to more in his detailed Q2 2026 fundraising report dropping shortly 👀
murphcapital.substack.com/
when @Beezer232 asks – we cook data.
a few weeks ago we published data on VC fundraising in H1 2026, and @Beezer232 asked whether the barbell effect is real and similar to the 2021 ZIRP era.
we don't have fund-level 2021 data in our own tracker at @murphcapital (we only started tracking in Jan 2026), but @PitchBook's global fundraising series goes back to 2016, so I pulled it and looked at two metrics: average fund size (capital raised ÷ funds closed, per year) and fund count.
and although there's no breakdown by EM vs. middle vs. mega-platform, here's what I found:
> in 2021, the market closed 4,739 funds and raised $377.1B – average fund size $80M.
> in H1 2026 alone, the market closed 727 funds and raised $98.8B – average fund size $136M.
that's a 1.7x jump, but worth being careful about why, though: average fund size can rise for two different reasons, and aggregate data alone can't fully separate them:
1/ real concentration: the top tier is taking a bigger slice, and the middle/bottom are genuinely losing share.
2/ survivorship: weak or small managers simply stop closing funds at all (they disappear from the denominator), which mechanically pushes the average up even if relative tier shares hadn't moved.
one tell for which effect is doing more work: fund count fell to ~15% of 2021's level (annualized), while capital only fell to ~26%. If this were pure survivorship, count and capital would have fallen together.
that gap is the tell that the funds still standing are taking home more each, not just that small managers vanished.
so to answer directly: no, this isn't "similar dynamics to 2021." It's more squeezed now and I'd frame like "2021 was concentration inside a boom, when capital and fund count were both exploding together and 2026 is concentration inside a contraction".
if you want the full breakdown, we're publishing our detailed Q2 2026 fundraising report tomorrow on Substack: murphcapital.substack.com
3
3
25
4,963
1/ Anyone who knows me knows I love digging into venture data, which is why I💛this analysis from @micahjay1 & @fcollective looking at the 500 largest startup exits (from ~100,000 venture-backed companies) over the last 25 years👇
7
4
22
3,926
4/ Many of today's defining companies are staying private longer, with trillions of dollars still in unrealized value, so these rankings will inevitably change as liquidity events occur.
1
1
150
5/ We’ll be watching to see if the overall distribution of outcomes continues to look like this, or if the current private valuations are indeed paving the way for even bigger exits in the future.
🔗: foundercollective.com/blog/u…
2
146
Another 'must read' post by @nchirls on core attributes of founders and investors.
The power of Patience.
Spot on as always.
"long-term games with long-term people" - 🙏 for being part of my long term
[New Blog Post] about Patience, linked below 👇
Lots of chatter about securing the bag now or remaining forever part of the permanent underclass.
Patience means you'll be poorer today but secure a lot more bag in the future, a strategy fewer and fewer are willing to undertake, but more important than ever.
3
2
12
3,134