Tech execs admit AI is a bubble—and they’re pretty happy about it: ‘We can’t deny there’s a ridiculous amount of investment going on’

If the AI boom had a physical form, it was alive and kicking at Web Summit this week as 71,000 startup founders, venture capital investors, tech CEOs, and the media who follow them gathered under literal storm clouds in Lisbon, Portugal, to discuss the future of the industry.

Tech stocks sold off dramatically as the conference wore on, after ‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry pointed out that some AI hyperscaler tech companies—including Meta and Oracle—were elongating the depreciation schedules of their AI capital expenditure (capex) to make their short-term profitability look more favourable. The Nasdaq Composite lost 2.3% yesterday. In addition, Oracle shares declined by 30% over the last month as investors rejected the company’s plan to increase its debt in large part to spend more on AI chips. READ MORE

VCs abandon old rules for a ‘funky time’ of investing in AI startups

If there’s one thing that VCs agree on when backing AI startups, it’s that AI requires a different investment approach than prior technological shifts.

“It’s a funky time,” said Aileen Lee, founder and managing partner of Cowboy Ventures, onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. The longtime VC noted that the rules of investing have significantly shifted now that some AI companies are leaping from “zero to $100 million in revenue in a single year.” READ MORE

Fueled by private equity, Volo Sports wants to take over your social life

Private equity's latest dating play has nothing to do with the apps. In November 2024, PE firm Bluestone Equity Partners made a $21 million growth investment to expand Volo Sports, an operator of a network of adult sports leagues, through acquisitions. This capital injection drove Volo's purchase of the country's second-largest social sports company, ZogSports.

Over the past decade and a half, Volo has grown from a 16-person bocce ball league in Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood to a sprawling, cross-country collection of youth leagues and co-ed sports teams, largely targeting young professionals in their 20s and 30s in urban areas. READ MORE

When Private Equity Bets On Emerging CEOs

Many private equity funds, search funds and family offices are betting on emerging CEOs—leaders who are often younger, are outsiders to the industry and are new to their teams—as the centerpiece of their value-creation plans. This model can inject fresh perspective and close alignment with investor strategy, but it also carries more risk than appointing a veteran executive or promoting from within.

I’m a private-equity operator and CEO of a portfolio company within a firm known for pioneering an investment model that champions emerging leaders. In my own journey stepping into the CEO seat of a decades-old business, I’ve learned that the first 100 days rarely look like the spreadsheet you walk in with. If you're an emerging CEO or expecting to become one, here's a look at what you can expect, as well as best practices that can help you start off on the right foot. READ MORE

Restoring the balance between public and private markets

Two decades ago, the remit of private markets was largely restricted to financing early-stage venture capital at one end of the spectrum and shaking up bloated and out of touch listed corporates at the other. Credit was either provided by banks, or public securities.

That situation has now changed entirely. The private credit industry has skyrocketed and, per industry estimates, the number of US businesses backed by private markets is now more than double the number of public companies, as traditional IPO candidates choose to stay private for longer. READ MORE

What’s new in venture capital? Update on Q3 2025 Venture Capital Trends

After three challenging years, Venture Capital (VC) funding is finally on the upswing according to data from Q3 of this year. KPMG’s Q3’25 Venture Pulse Report data shows global VC investment in Q3 totaling $120.7 billion across 7,579, deals making it the fourth consecutive quarter of “robust global growth.” With investor sentiment improving and exit windows opening again, VC investment is making a comeback. READ MORE

Venture capital is not an asset class, says Sequoia’s Roelof Botha

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Sequoia managing partner Roelof Botha argued that the venture industry isn’t an asset class and that throwing more money into Silicon Valley doesn’t lead to better companies.

“Investing in venture is a return-free risk,” Botha said during an interview on TechCrunch Disrupt’s main stage on Monday. “Anybody who’s studied the capital asset pricing model understands the joke of that. The reason I came up with this is, if you look at the history of venture capital, it’s an asset that’s uncorrelated with other asset classes.” READ MORE

PE investment globally hits $1.5 trillion in first three quarters of 2025 despite slowdown in deal activity

At the end of Q3’25, global PE deal volume was $1.5 trillion — on pace to reach a four-year high should investment remain steady through Q4’25. The buoyant investment is notable given the significant decline in deal volume — from 15,083 deals in the first three quarters of 2024 to 13,574 in the first three quarters of 2025.

After some pullback in PE investment in Q2’25 — driven largely by geopolitical tensions and uncertainties related to US tariffs — Q3’25 saw global PE investment reach $537.1 billion according to KPMG’s Q3’25 Pulse of Private Equity. The buoyant deal value was helped significantly by three very large public-to-private transactions in the US: Electronic Arts ($54.6 billion), Air Lease ($28.2 billion), and Dayforce ($12.4 billion). READ MORE

Here's the pitch deck that Pacaso, a luxury vacation home startup, used to crowdfund $72 million from 17,500 investors

Have you heard of Reg A? Neither had Austin Allison — until he used it to fund Pacaso, a real estate startup for luxury vacation homes.

Allison, Pacaso's cofounder and CEO, started the company with Spencer Rascoff. They were both veterans of the real estate and consumer technology industries when they launched Pacaso in 2020. READ MORE

This top VC has bet close to 20% of his fund on teenagers — here’s why

Kevin Hartz tends to be first through the door. In 2001, he co-founded Xoom, back when sending money across borders meant standing in line at Western Union. In 2013, it went public, and in 2015, PayPal paid $1.1 billion for it. Four years after launching Xoom, he co-founded Eventbrite, which went public in 2018 and turned buying event tickets into something you could do without wanting to throw your laptop in the ocean.

After a stint at Founders Fund, Hartz co-founded his own venture firm, A* Capital (a nod to a computer science algorithm), then in 2020, he spotted another trend before the masses: the SPAC boom. His blank-check company, “one,” swallowed up 3D printing outfit Markforged in a $2.1 billion reverse merger in 2021, right as every other financier in Silicon Valley suddenly decided SPACs were the future. READ MORE

Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet

“We have incurred operating losses in the past, may incur operating losses in the future, and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.”

Yes, that’s singling out boilerplate corporate language in the “Risk Factors” section of docs filed by The Los Angeles Times as it seeks investors ahead of an initial public offering that may take place in 2027 on the New York Stock Exchange under the LAT symbol. But, with a net loss before income taxes of $48 million on the books for 2024, the line also speaks to the urgency of billionaire owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong‘s bid to transform the business of the 144-year-old paper, which now employs 615 full-time staffers and says it has about 500,000 paying customers combined across its print and digital offerings. READ MORE

Private equity’s comeback is missing one key ingredient

In the world of private equity, the mood is decidedly more upbeat. Despite tariff uncertainty and rising equity valuations, sponsors have managed to reel in some big fish, with the whale being the $55bn buyout of Electronic Arts. And with the listings window cracking open, even in stagnant Europe, there is hope that the sector may finally sell down part of the $3tn asset pile it has amassed. The latest data suggests an uptick is already under way. In Europe, sponsors sold some €90bn of assets in the third quarter says PitchBook. Globally, industry exits have grown to $871bn so far this year, which is already higher than the total achieved in 2022 and 2023, and, at the current rate, on track to beat 2024. READ MORE

VC secondaries continue to grow, but GP-led deals are lagging

Annual GP-led VC secondaries have reached around $14.6 billion and are projected to grow by $1.5 billion in the next two years, according to a new PitchBook analyst note. Direct secondaries, meanwhile, are hovering around $60 billion in annual transactions, up from $50 billion last year.

“The biggest takeaway is that the GP-led secondaries market has grown in recent years because of the exits stalemate—but because the market has inherent limitations, both on the buyer side and the seller side, its growth is limited to a small universe of potential venture firms that can spin out continuation funds and strip sales,” said Emily Zheng, a senior VC research analyst at PitchBook. READ MORE

3 Reasons to Care About Private Markets Even if You’re Not Investing in Them

Bringing private markets to the masses is the talk of the investment world these days. As more capital formation takes place beyond public exchanges, efforts are underway to give retail investors access to private equity and private credit. Semiliquid funds offer one route. Private assets may even be coming to 401(k) plans.

Skeptics suspect a cash grab. As much as phrases like “democratizing access” sound altruistic, private market investment managers see retail assets as a means of growing their businesses. Private market funds are known for high fees, illiquidity, and opacity. Their diversification and performance benefits can be oversold. READ MORE

A sophisticated VC strategy that’s not worth as much to LPs as you’d think

LPs like to think that selecting top fund managers means a greater likelihood of blockbuster returns. And that conventional wisdom is especially prevalent in venture capital, where a few well-timed bets can yield truly incredible returns.

But new research from PitchBook suggests that in most cases, the ability to pick superior GPs may not generate any more alpha in venture capital than in buyouts, an asset class where the gap between the best and worst managers is narrower. READ MORE

Private Equity’s Profit Charade

In my previous post, I explained why investments in private equity firms that buy and manage companies with the intent of changing them so they can be sold for a profit are especially risky. Those risks are ultimately being borne by a large segment of the population because public pension management institutions that hold the pension funds of public schoolteachers and other state workers are often large investors in private equity. 

Yet, as I also pointed out, those high risks might be justified if the returns from investments in private equity were especially large. But are they? READ MORE