Let's be honest - no one has any idea how market chaos will impact early stage investing.

But we can look at deal activity in the last week. Yes, announcements are a lagging indicator of investment activity, because deals can get signed months before they’re announced. Yet, they are a signal of overall market excitement and what investors want to invest in, which we don’t anticipate will change overnight just because of the public markets.Last week, we saw:

• Bessemer led 2 deals

• Bain Capital Ventures led 2 deals

• OpenAI co-led a $43M Series A with a16z (OpenAI is quietly emerging as a Series A lead)

• And Spark, Index, General Catalyst, and Khosla all led a deal

That’s a lot of activity across the board from the brand-name funds, who are investing across AI infra, Vertical AI (edtech, procurement, security, sales), fintech, healthcare, energy, and even waste management (yes, you heard that right - [Sorghum Waste]).TLDR: VCs are also spooked about the public markets and an impending recession. Yet savvy early stage investors are looking for reasons to be optimistic about specific opportunities with long-term potential and defensibility.“Down years are easier than up years. Signal to noise is very high and okay, prices are down, but with a long-term perspective, that doesn’t bother us.” — Matt Huang, Paradigm (Source: Colossus)