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Our panelists for this roundtable:
Matt Curtolo is a private markets investor and advisor with more than twenty years of experience in asset allocation. He is currently an advisor to general partners on strategy, fundraising, and investor relations. Matt was previously the Head of Investments at Allocate, focusing on expanding access to venture capital for private wealth investors. His prior roles include co-managing the global alternatives portfolio at MetLife, serving as Head of Private Equity at Hirtle Callaghan, and gaining foundational experience at Hamilton Lane.
Anurag Chandra is the Chief Investment Officer of a single-family office and associated venture studio in Silicon Valley and has over two decades of experience as an investor, operator, and allocator. He is also a Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee for the San Jose Federated City Employees Retirement Fund, a $4.5 billion pension fund. He has managed four venture funds with combined assets under management totaling over $2 billion and is the Chairman and CEO of Constellation Insurance Holdings. Anurag has also held executive roles in enterprise technology startups, two of which were acquired by public companies.
Welcome to the inaugural issue of the VC10X Newsletter.
For our first-ever LP Roundtable, we brought together Matt and Anurag, two seasoned Limited Partners managing billions across venture portfolios, to dissect the state of VC heading into 2026. We covered everything: macro conditions, the DPI crisis, exit strategies, fundraising dynamics, and the trillion-dollar question around future innovation.
This wasn't a feel-good, polite conversation. It was real talk about what's broken, what's working, and what needs to change.
Part 1: The Macro Question - Do Interest Rates Actually Matter?
We started with the Fed's recent 25 basis point rate cut and asked: Does this change anything for venture?
The Short Answer: Not really.
Both Matt and Anurag argued that while you need to be "macro aware," interest rates don't directly build companies or drive innovation. The bigger concern is asset allocation - as private credit offers 7-8% risk-free yields, LPs are forced to justify why they're allocating to an asset class with "checkered track records" over the past decade.
"When you start to see 10-11% yields, you wonder why are you in venture." - Anurag
But both emphasized venture isn't a beta play. It exists for alpha generation, the power law returns that emerge from platform technologies. As Anurag puts it: "There are four or five platform technologies that will generate Internet 1.0 type of wealth." That's why they stay committed.
The Nuance: Interest rates do matter for existing SaaS portfolios and late-stage valuations. Many VCs are still sitting on overvalued SaaS companies from the 2020-2021 era, and higher rates make those exits increasingly difficult.
Part 2: The DPI Crisis - Why LPs Are Obsessed with Distributions
The conversation turned to the elephant in the room: DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital).
Anurag introduced the concept of the "equilateral triangle", LPs need to balance IRR, MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital), and DPI. But right now, the industry is hyperfocused on DPI because there's been a "real DPI crisis."
Funds that raised in 2020-2021 marked portfolios at 8-10x on paper, but LPs who invested in funds with proven 3-4x realized track records are still waiting for their cash.
Matt shared an observation: Many managers are now saying, "If I had sold when it was X, I would have generated this." His response? "But you didn't, right?"
The Reality: The industry conditioned itself to expect liquidity in 7-10 years. But Anurag's firm now models a 15-year+ cycle because that's the actual reality. LPs who didn't adjust their models are now scrambling.
The Takeaway for GPs: Your job isn't just picking winners, it's managing those wins to generate liquidity. As Matt put it: "My net returns tell me how good of a fund manager I am. I can absolutely erode those gross returns by mismanaging the business side of running a fund."
Part 3: Where Will Exits Come From?
With IPO markets sluggish and M&A activity stalled by regulatory headwinds, the exit question loomed large.
M&A is Still the Bread and Butter
Matt emphasized that while IPOs get the headlines, "the bread and butter of this industry has always been through M&A." The challenge? Regulatory regimes have been restrictive, but there's optimism that 2026 could see a resurgence in sponsor-backed M&A activity.
Public Markets Might Not Be the Answer
The number of public companies continues to decline while private companies over $100M in revenue grow. "The public markets are just not as attractive as they used to be." More activity will have to happen in private markets, through secondaries, structured liquidity events, and strategic sales.
The Trillion-Dollar Outliers
But here's where it got interesting. Anurag admitted to a "total failure of imagination" in 2012, he never thought a $100B venture-backed company was possible. Today, SpaceX trades at $800B privately. OpenAI is valued at half a trillion.
"Will OpenAI be a trillion dollars? Will Anthropic be worth a trillion dollars? ...Maybe when they finally come, years down the road, they're going to be really big." - Anurag
Matt added: "Why couldn't it be a two or three or four trillion dollar company? ...We've now gotten the insight that these things are possible."
This changes the calculus, maybe riding winners longer is the right strategy, even if it means delayed liquidity.
Part 4: The Fundraising Reality - Why It's Harder Than Ever
We shifted gears to ask: Why does it take 18-36 months to raise a fund now?
The Bifurcation is Real
Brand-name firms with $5B+ funds continue to raise easily. But for emerging and small managers (sub-$100M funds), it's brutal. Anurag broke down the structural issues:
Wrong Audience: Small funds pitch large institutions that can't write $5-10M checks, they need $50M+ minimums.
Sense of Urgency: Family offices and HNWIs don't have the same urgency as institutional allocators. GPs get ghosted after months of diligence.
Lack of Differentiation: "There's also a thousand small managers out there who look and talk the same. They don't do a good job of differentiating themselves."
Career Risk Drives Behavior
Matt highlighted the brutal truth about institutional allocators: "You never get fired for buying IBM." Allocating to Lightspeed's $9B fund feels safer than betting on an emerging $25M manager, even if the smaller fund has more upside potential.
The Opportunity
But both see a shift coming. More institutions are embracing smaller managers as the next driver of alpha. Early-stage funds are more nimble, more immune to macro shocks, and better positioned to capture emerging platform technologies.
Part 5: The Business of Venture - It's Not Just Stock Picking
Perhaps the most sobering moment came when Anurag said:
"Doctors have to go to medical school to become doctors. Anyone can call themselves a venture capitalist."
Being good at picking companies (gross returns) is only half the job. Managing the fund, manufacturing liquidity, knowing when to take secondary opportunities, distributing public stock properly, portfolio construction, compliance, all of that determines net returns.
As Matt said: "If you're investing in venture for short-term liquidity, you're never going to be satisfied." But if you're building a durable firm with disciplined portfolio management, you can weather cycles and compound returns over decades.
Bottom Line: "Venture is not a beta play." It's a high-conviction, long-duration bet on innovation. And it requires world-class fund management to realize those returns.
Final Thought: The Next Decade
We ended with optimism grounded in reality. Yes, the past few years have been challenging. Yes, DPI is a problem. Yes, fundraising is brutal for most managers.
But the innovation cycle is accelerating. AI, autonomy, computational biology, deep tech, these aren't incremental improvements. They're generational platforms. And the LPs who stay committed, who back disciplined managers, and who think in 15-30 year horizons will capture outsized returns.
The question for 2026 isn't whether venture "gets better." It's whether you're positioned to capture what comes next.
[Listen to the full LP Roundtable on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, & YouTube]
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