#252: Q2 Recap-Discipline, Duration, and the Changing Venture Stack
The second quarter of 2025 wasn’t about acceleration. It was about adaptation.
Across 22 posts (#230–#251), we tracked how venture firms, LPs, and markets are responding to longer feedback loops, platform shifts, and a new kind of liquidity discipline.
This wasn’t a quarter of flashy exits. It was one of deeper rewiring. Here’s what mattered—and what it signals.
🧱 Q2’s Most-Read Post: VCs Becoming RIAs
→ #240: Lightspeed’s Quiet Leap—and What It Signals
This one hit a nerve. The post broke down how Lightspeed’s transition to RIA status wasn’t just regulatory trivia—it was a structural unlock. The reactions? High engagement, wide reposting, and multiple LPs flagged it as a must-read.
“Think Blackstone in a hoodie.”
RIA status = full-stack freedom: public equities, roll-ups, secondaries, and crossover liquidity—all under one roof.
This post catalyzed follow-ups on the venture operating system (#242) and the mid-quarter stack shift (#241). It wasn’t just a firm-level move—it reflected a broader rewiring of how capital is deployed in modern VC.
Not just a firm becoming an RIA. A whole model becoming a platform.
⚙️ Valuation Season Began with Questions, Not Certainty
→ #230–#231: Valuation Playbook & Templates
Funds opened Q2 with a familiar ritual: mark the books. But in 2025, stale marks, pricing gaps, and bid-ask spreads made valuation policies feel more like strategic weapons than compliance tools.
Backsolve math is everywhere—but conviction is not.
#230 VC Quarterly Valuation Time (Q1'25)
#231 Valuation Playbook 2025: Trends, Techniques, and Policy Updates
📉 Macro Jitters Hit Hard. Then Receded. Then Returned. Then Receded?!?!
→ #232–#234: Public/Private Market Swings, Q1 Recaps
Tariff headlines, Fed language, and equity volatility fed into deal pacing and exit timing. We tracked how the biggest Q1 since 2022 ($121B raised) wasn’t as healthy under the hood.
DPI stalled. TVPI inflated. LP calls got more awkward.
#232 April Markets Up/Down/All Around
#233 Inside VC in Q1’25: Record Funding, Deal Flow, and What’s Next
#234 What Just Happened in VC? A Look at Q1 2025 (NVCA Venture Monitor)
🤖 AI Became Not Just a Theme—But a Funding Default
→ #238, #243, #247: AI-Driven Private Markets & IPO Hopes
More than 60% of mid/late-stage VC funding went to AI. And while the IPO window teased a comeback (CoreWeave, Figma, eToro), most AI companies still prefer staying private—at a premium.
Why go public when capital’s still flowing and the trade spreads are tightening?
#238 IPO Window, Tariffs & AI (Spring 2025)
#243: Tech IPOs Are Coming Back. Slowly. AI Might Lead.
#247: IPO Liquidity Is Back — For Real This Time?
🔁 Secondaries Stopped Being Optional
→ #237, #246, #249: Liquidity Design Is Now a Strategy
What used to be taboo is now infrastructure. Solo GPs and seed funds are building secondaries into fund pacing, DPI targeting, and even manager differentiation.
Secondaries = capital recycler, alignment lever, exit strategy.
#237 Secondaries Are (Finally) a Core Part of Seed VC
#246: 🎧 LPs, Solo GPs, and the Power Law: Michael Kim on Backing the Best
#249: Venture Equations: Power Laws, Secondaries, and the Discipline Premium
📚 The Traditional VC Stack Broke—Then Reassembled as a Platform
→ #236, #240–#242: RIA Era + Full-Stack VC Moves
Lightspeed joined Sequoia, a16z, and General Catalyst in RIA territory. The takeaway: venture firms are becoming capital orchestration platforms. Evergreen capital, secondaries, M&A, public/private crossover—all on one balance sheet.
VCs aren’t just picking startups. They’re building infrastructure.
#236 "The VC Assembly Line Is Broken"
#241 Mid-Quarter Check-In: RIA Era, Secondary Power Plays, and a Shifting Stack
#242 The New Operating System for Venture
🧮 Fund Math Got Harder (Unless You're Small)
→ #244, #249, #250: Power Laws, Fund Sizing, and Unicorn Markdowns
Top-quartile funds? $65M. Top-decile? $38M. Meanwhile, over 25% of unicorns are no longer unicorns. Fund outcomes are compressing—unless you’re lean and focused.
LPs are recalibrating. Smaller funds with discipline are compounding faster.
#244 – Small Funds, Big Wins: The Case for Lean Venture Strategies
#249: Venture Equations: Power Laws, Secondaries, and the Discipline Premium
#250: >1200 Unicorns: Early Backers, >25% Are No Longer >$1B
💰 Fundraising Split Into Two Markets
→ #251: Raising in 2025
The bifurcation is real. If you’re AI-adjacent, liquidity-proven, or secondaries-fluent, you’re raising. If not, LPs are pressing pause.
In Q2, LP patience wasn’t gone—but it got more expensive.
#251: Raising a VC Fund in 2025: Liquidity, AI, and a Tale of Two Markets
Final Take
If Q1 was noisy, Q2 was telling. Valuation mechanics, liquidity windows, and fund pacing are all being rebuilt under pressure. And the firms leading the charge aren’t louder—they’re more structurally sound.
What’s working now:
– Structured secondaries
– RIA-enabled flexibility
– Sub-$100M fund discipline
– DPI-aligned pacing
– Liquidity planning from Day 1
We’re not in the next bull run. We’re in the part where structure beats story.
Onward to Q3.
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