VC Investing During Covid

One of the top questions I’m asked these days is, “Are you still investing during the Covid-19 pandemic?” The answer, of course, is “Yes,” but the details are important enough that I thought it was worthwhile to explore them in greater depth and share them with entrepreneurs who are raising money, or thinking about doing so.

My fellow investor at Greylock Partners, Saam Motamedi, recently joined me for a conversation with my Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, who guided a discussion of how Covid-19 has and hasn’t changed how we invest at Greylock.

Tomorrow, we'll be posting our conversation in a new episode of Greymatter.

For example, we’re now spending more time with entrepreneurs than before the pandemic, both taking advantage of reduced travel, and to better build trust remotely. Saam arranges Zooms with key non-founder members of startup teams, since he no longer runs into them on visits to their offices.

Another unexpected change is that entrepreneurs outside the Bay Area are on a more level (virtual) playing field, and we’ve made some investments in founders in other regions without ever having seen them in person, which boosts the geographic diversity of our portfolio.

The pandemic has accelerated progress in some obvious areas. For example, one of Saam’s areas of focus is security; with everyone working remotely, the security and integrity of distributed channels of communication is more important than ever. But it has also had some counterintuitive effects, like boosting the appeal of Airbnb’s whole-house model relative to traditional hotels for driving vacations.

Finally, the pandemic has led to some Greylock-specific changes, like funding companies for 36 months of runway rather than the traditional 18-24 months, so they can focus on building and early customer validation right now, and using virtual collaboration tools like Figma to help incubate new companies.

To listen to the entire episode, which goes live tomorrow and includes many more pandemic lessons, subscribe to Greymatter wherever you listen. (Soundcloud | iTunes | Spotify | Google | Stitcher) You can also listen to my own predictions for how the “Class of 2020” startups will be different in this previous episode.