Edition #11: 31 New Funds, How Mega Funds Actually Work, Emerging VC Tech Stack
Hey folks,
This is Pavel and welcome to the 11th edition (March, 2026) of Murph Capital newsletter.
This is my monthly brain-dump of the most useful stuff I’ve come across as an operator in the GP/LP world.
Follow me on X and LinkedIn for more frequent insights.
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5 Best Tweets
“How mega funds actually work now”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“The math on 3 LLMs capturing 70% of all VC profits from the last decade”
By Meghan Reynolds from Altimeter Capital
“The complete emerging VC tech stack: fund admin to AI agents, mapped”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“The greatest VCs of the last 20 years who never touched an operator role”
By Kyle Harrison from Contrary Research
“The Red Queen problem nobody in VC wants to say out loud”
By Patrick OShaughnessy from Positive Sum
5 Best Linkedin Posts
“When to say NO to LP check as an emerging VC?”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Venture's Nifty Fifty moment: when consensus trades become overcrowded trades”
By Jeff Weinstein from FJ Labs
“IRR, TVPI and DPI across 8 recent vintages – mapped”
By Peter Walker from Carta
“Why the top 10-20 VC firms are oversubscribed while everyone else starves”
By Samir Kaji from Allocate
“Required returns vs. real returns”
By Nicolai Rasmussen from Bifrost Studios
5 Substack Stories
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“How Mucker Capital turned $1M from one LP into $60M through blue-collar VC”
By Dan Gray from Odin
“VC returns revealed: Recent thrive & notable funds in a league of their own at UTIMCO”
By Madeline Renbarger from Newcomer
“How 1517 Fund turned a thesis about mispriced dropouts into 4.41x DPI and 9.65x total value”
By Dan Gray from Odin
By Lawrence from LP Perspectives
5 Best Reports
By Samir Kaji / Hana Yang from Allocate
By Peter Walker / Janet Deng / Kevin Dowd from Carta
“2025 SPV year-in-review: The new normal for emerging managers”
By Sydecar
“The top 100 gen AI consumer apps – 6th edition”
By Olivia Moore from a16z
By Redpoint Ventures
Iconic Funds Snapshot
Mucker Capital Fund I (~$12M, 2013)
Two blue-collar operators bet on LA before anyone was watching and returned 20x DPI from a single fund.
Lowercase Capital Fund I ($8.4M, 2010)
How Chris Sacca's $300K Uber check and Instagram Series A built a $1.7B return on $8.4M fund.
Emerging Managers Interviews
Adam Koopersmith and Sonia Nagar left Pritzker Group to back seed-stage B2B marketplaces in “unsexy” industries and closed $50M Fund. I asked Adam 10 questions about how they did it.
31 New VC Funds
View all other funds by clicking the button below.
42 VC/LP Events + Our First Event in SF
3 Best Podcasts
SV Angel founder Ron Conway joins Jack Altman to show how decades of founder-first relationship brokering across Apple, Google, Airbnb, OpenAI, and more let him step in at existential inflection points. He argues that true seed investing means being all‑in for founders, from rescuing companies during COVID and the SVB crisis to fighting policy threats like California’s proposed 5% wealth tax he believes would push tech builders out of the state.
a16z’s Erik Torenberg, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz join to argue that in a world where individuals beat institutions, firms and founders need to run a full-stack, always-on media strategy instead of relying on legacy press. They explain how a16z’s New Media team, “launch as a service,” and a dedicated media fellowship help portfolio companies ship fast, platform-native content that shapes narratives, reaches the right tech audiences, and turns founders into their own distribution channels.
Benchmark GP Chetan Puttagunta joins Turner Novak to explain why AI apps like Manus - from zero to ~$100M ARR in eight months - are reopening every "finished" SaaS category. He argues incumbents should be deploying balance-sheet capital into AI acquisitions, outlines how Benchmark's concentrated, small-partnership model is targeting early-stage AI apps and app-enabling infrastructure, and why public investors are already circling the best names.
Personal Notes
New media is live. Murph Capital is no longer just a newsletter. We shipped a media and community platform built specifically for emerging VCs and LPs – curated signals across LinkedIn, X, Substack, and top industry outlets, filtered by what matters to GPs and allocators. Read the full story behind it here.
First Murph event – SF, April 30. We’re hosting our first IRL event in San Francisco on April 30th. Panels, networking, film photography – and a tight-knit room of GPs and LPs who actually want to talk shop. We’re bringing in panelists from A16Z, Outcast VC and Orange Collective. If you’re in the Bay, come find us.
Two sponsors joined Murph. We're welcoming Rings AI and Cura this issue.
Rings AI is an intelligent XRM built for relationship-driven firms – it helps managers surface warm paths, understand their network, and maintain deal flow with AI acting as the memory layer of the firm.
Cura is the best way to stay on top of your portfolio: LinkedIn, X, Granola notes, emails, board decks, iMessages – all ingested and searchable in one place.
I’m moving to the Bay. After almost a year running Murph from Chicago, I’m relocating to San Francisco. The decision was simple: I want to be closer to the GP and LP community I spend most of my time thinking about anyway. More events, more face time, more serendipity. Actively looking for a 2bed+/2bath in SF or the broader Bay Area – so if you have leads, send them my way.
Previous Editions
What would you like to see in the next episodes? I'd love to hear your ideas – just hit reply and let me know what would be most valuable to you.
Just wanted to say I love your Substack, so much useful information here!