Trace Cohen's Newsletter

I went viral last week for my fun data, analytics and Ai project

At a $350B valuation and $4.694B of Q1 revenue, SpaceX would be valued at roughly 18.6x annualized Q1 revenue.

The data tells a very different story than the common narrative that “the IPO market is dead.”

The next great moats may not look like walls at all.

Moats protected kingdoms. Canals created civilizations.

Over the past few months, something fundamental has shifted in software.

And it fits exactly with where they are heading.

A ValueAddVC Deep Dive

A practical guide to understanding how venture capital actually works in the AI age

Performance has stabilized, but liquidity has not fully returned.

How 71 public tech companies went from peak ZIRP multiples

Does size matter?

Visa, Mastercard and American Express will be just fine

The Hub for All Things VC and More.

We're now only limited by our creativity and agency to execute

Venture, SaaS, and Startups in the AI Era

The quiet battle for the future of digital payment rails

We need to build castles now to protect our data, not moats to protect the business

Why scale does not break venture returns when ownership, duration, and market structure change

The tools work. The users are ready. The institutions are the bottleneck.

Why Big Tech Needs Capability Now, Why Everyone Gets Paid, and Why This Has Become the Default Liquidity Path in AI

How AI, infrastructure, and ambitious builders create the next decade of innovation

Internal teams cannot replicate specialized technology, data moats, and domain expertise fast enough to stay competitive.

What the newest Carta data actually reveals about how venture funds operate

A new dataset of category-defining companies reveals where AI value is actually accumulating — and why the next decade will belong to founders building inside high-stakes industries.

The Gap Between Early Survival and the $10B+ Boss Level

How AI Is Quickly Reshaping the Enterprise Stack From the Outside in

The enduring advantage in AI will come from domain expertise, workflow integration, and trust

Big Tech’s $112B quarter proves that the world is constructing the physical backbone of intelligence

Why Every Company Must Now Manufacture Outcomes, Not Just Display Data

We still need to stay pragmatic and realistic though about expectations

Why America’s Ai boom isn’t a bubble, it’s an amalgamation of steel, silicon, and raw power.

The dot-com era was tiny revenue and big stories. Today is trillions in revenue, real capex, and physical constraints. AI is infrastructure, not hype.

Laying the Foundation Now for the AI-Driven World Ahead

How to invest at the earliest stages of the new agentic world we now live in

Fed Cuts Into Strength: What History and Markets Tell Us

So Lets Understanding Where Exits Happen: Data, Trends, and Industry Patterns

Why 2–5x is enough for many family offices while VCs underwrite every deal for 100x

The next frontier in Vertical AI is system design; where specialized agents collaborate through orchestrated workflows to solve real business problems

A failed $20B Adobe acquisition turned into one of the biggest—and most impactful—public debuts the market has seen in years.

How liquidity solutions are strengthening LP flexibility, empowering founders, and keeping capital flowing across tech.

Google didn’t buy the company. The founders exited. The remaining team got lucky. But this isn’t how most startup stories end.

For trillion-dollar companies, talent isn't expensive but missed opportunities are!

Founder control + Meta’s cash engine = a level of audacity no rival can match

Navigating the Barbell Game of Venture Funding At The Edges

Some things are improving and getting better while we still deal with other systemic issues

Only the Largest Tech Companies Can Truly Build AI - Everyone Else Is Just Along For The Ride

Acquisition-as-R&D: The Only Playbook That Works For Enterprise Right Now.

How fund sizes have only doubled while top exits have 7x’d

A new wave of IPOs and billion-dollar acquisitions is breaking the silence—venture capital is liquid again.

Mega early rounds are distorting market dynamics, allowing large firms to overpay early and extend control deeper into the cap table

Why Family Offices Must Evolve From Direct Investors to Strategic LPs

Valuations are up, deal volume is down, and LPs are chasing the safe bets—but that’s not where the returns are.

Why industry-specific intelligence — not another massive model — will define the next generation of enterprise products

Inside the VC math (and mania) behind this year’s biggest AI fundraises.

Uncertainty isn’t just a challenge—it’s the spark. Here’s how startups are turning today’s volatility into tomorrow’s breakthroughs.

Quantity > Quality is Now What Matters Most, Again.

Record-breaking venture capital, landmark M&A, and IPO resurgence cement Israel’s position as a global tech powerhouse in 2025.

Liquidity is back on the menu - lets see how this will that affect the VC/LP markets?

Caught in the Crossfire: Why Middle Managers Face the Highest Stakes in AI Adoption And Are The Bottleneck For Everyone

Right now you need to be buying and not building internally before they get left behind

Right now it's Vertical AI Saas because we still need all the current platforms, data and recurring fees to pay the bills

Being worth $1B used to be cool but now if you're not worth at least $5-$10B, it doesn't really matter.

The J-Curve is gone for now - the last few years have been mostly flat as countless startups were marked up highly and are still growing into their valuations.

I keep seeing so many post about why VCs are bad and startups shouldn't raise capital to artificially grow faster, which is the

Industry-specific AI startups that embed deeply into existing workflows, automate high-value processes, and drive measurable economic impact.

Hundreds of billion in liquidity are locked up just waiting to be distributed to LPs

Regardless of the current environment, we always need to remember that we're in the business of exits.

Startup nation isn't going anywhere and will emerge stronger than ever, again.

It's the culmination of almost two decades in the tech startup world to continue doing what I love.

It's 2025 now, just accept it. Early on it's all about growth and users then figure it out.

LPs dont invest in them expecting to make outsized returns - they're just trying to minimize their downside.

Yes it is but it doesn't matter because because it's part of the game

Let The Good Times Roll. We have a lot to be excited and optimistic about

If managers are forced to chase safer bets, we lose the bold ideas that have historically driven transformative outcomes.

Without them, there really wouldn't be a true pre-seed and seed stage market

Last valued at $9.5B in 2021 or a 15.5x revenue which is a premium

It's completely unacceptable that almost no private VC backed startup has gone public in the last year.

How AI is Revolutionizing Product Development From Concept to Consumer Winning Product 10x faster

We need to fund emerging managers now to prepare for the liquidity wave coming.

It's been a rough two and a half years but it's not supposed to be easy.

It's risky, contrarian, all about product market fit and growth (not at all costs)

Fund are actually pretty complex but when they work, everyone wins!

The Bell Labs of our day has to commercialize and capitalize itself to sustain massive growth and losses to exceed expectations

A guide for emerging managers trying to find, pitch and close LP investors

M&A, Liquidity, Consolidation and Secondaries are all over the place right now

Startups and VC are not supposed to be easy - startups are hard!

With Cursor it was pretty simple but very helpful to have a smart Ai bot to chat with

Concentration is good for your portfolio but not for the industry

The first Carta Fund Performance showed how few people actually understand the VC/startup business model

We need to jump start the early stage engine again before the industry stalls

BIG tech has found a way to get around regulators and buy the top Ai talent

Concentrated or more shots on goal, either way you need a HUGE exit

As LPs pressure investors for liquidity, VCs bridge their funds to prolong their life as exits take longer

They are starting to really lean in and fill the gaps as LPs to ensure true early stage pre/seed investing gets back on track soon

LPs are starting to lean in and write BIG checks into the BIG established VCs again

Sometimes you need to be a student of the game and learn from our history, to better understand our present and soon to be future

It's pretty much impossible for a true VC backed tech startup to IPO early these days

It will still be another year before the tech/VC world starts to really recover

We invested in Ai 6yrs ago before it was cool

Maybe startups are still where money/growth is at :)

Now Leaner, Meaner and Purpose Driven

We need to fund the scouts of the VC world

It's just an easy excuse to pass on startups you're afraid to invest in

No one ever got fired for investing in Tier 1 VC

Yes, we're 100% in a bubble, but that's okay because that's how the game works.

Tech people aren’t haters; they're just jaded and live in an echo chamber

The Startups/VC world is showing some signs of recovery, but is it real?

It's been another weird year for tech...