VC market is tight for startups --- limits options

(Ashley, “SVB collapse is double-whammy for tech startups already navigating brutal market,” pg online @ https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/19/svb-fail-is-double-whammy-for-startups-dealing-with-plunge-in-venture-.html //um-ef)

But in many areas of the startup economy, company leaders are feeling the pressure. Matt Blumberg, CEO of Bolster, said founders are optimistic by nature. He created Bolster at the height of the pandemic in 2020 to help startups hire executives, board members and advisers, and now works with thousands of companies while also doing venture investing. Even before the SVB failure, he’d seen how difficult the market had become for startups after consecutive record-shattering years for financing and an extended stretch of VC-subsidized growth. “I coach and mentor a lot of founders, and that’s the group that’s like, they can’t fall asleep at night,” Blumberg said in an interview. “They’re putting weight on, they’re not going to the gym because they’re stressed out or working all the time.” VCs are telling their portfolio companies to get used to it. Bill Gurley, the longtime Benchmark partner who backed Uber , Zillow and Stitch Fix , told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang last week that the frothy pre-2022 market isn’t coming back. “In this environment, my advice is pretty simple, which is — that thing we lived through the last three or four years, that was fantasy,” Gurley said. “Assume this is normal.”