Edition #12: 23 New Funds, Consensus Capital Age, Best Seed Picking VCs
Hey folks,
This is Pavel and welcome to the 12th edition (April, 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.
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In Partnership With
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5 Best Tweets
“The concentration era: why VC dollars are flowing to the top 1%”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“How Alameda Research got into Cursor and left at cost”
By Jeff Weinstein from FJ Labs
“Winning the Seed game: ownership, networks, and 35+ bets”
By Nichole Wischoff from Wischoff VC
“Why VC is now two genuinely separate asset classes”
By Samir Kaji from Allocate
“The 75/75 rule defining the age of consensus capital”
By Nico Wittenborn from Adjacent
5 Best Linkedin Posts
“How to measure Seed picking alpha before DPI can”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Why emerging managers and mega funds aren't actually competing”
By Peter Walker from Carta
“The three waves of VC media and why Wave 3.0 is the last one you can catch”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“What Cursor's $60bn exit in 4 years means for fund size and manager selection”
By David Clark from VenCap International plc
“How sovereign wealth funds quietly took over VC's LP base”
By Lak Ananth from N47
5 Best Longreads
“How should emerging managers approach marketing?”
Guest post for Murph Capital by Laurie Owen
“The narrow path: the state of seed, and a way forward“
By Lucas Vaz from Ravelin Cap
“The Frontiersmen: inside the $38M fund that outperformed a generation“
By Dan Gray from Odin
“How the firm with the best returns should do marketing“
By Laurie Owen from Refinery Media
“I only care about terminal value“
By Yoni Rechtman from Slow Ventures
5 Key Market Reports
”Q1 2026 PitchBook - NVCA Monitor”
By Pitchbook & NVCA
By CB Insights
By VC Archive
“The Big Book of VC - Q1 2026 Edition“
By Rohit Yadav from All Things VC
By CB Insights
Iconic Fund Breakdown
Two Thiel Fellowship alumni bet on the dropouts and the overlooked and turned contrarian conviction into 4.41x DPI and 9.65x TVPI.
Emerging Manager Q&A
Redbud VC bet the best founders aren’t where VCs are looking and raised an oversubscribed $25M fund to prove it. We asked Brett 10 questions about how they did it.
New VC Funds
Upcoming VC/LP Events
“Seed-to-Scale Signal” with Harmonic
We used Harmonic to look at every company in the US and Europe that raised a Series A, B, or C and ask a simple question: who seeded them?
In April 2026, we identified 111 companies across the US and Europe that announced a Series A, B, or C round and had at least one prior seed or pre-seed round on record. We then traced every institutional investor (VC funds, angel groups, venture studios) that participated in those seed rounds.
Each seed-to-upround conversion is scored using three factors – all derived from the April round itself:
Stage Weight – Series C = 3x, Series B = 2x, Series A = 1x. Later-stage conversions are harder to reach and signal stronger company trajectories.
Round Size Weight – Rather than using fixed dollar thresholds, we calibrate against the month’s actual distribution. A $100M Series A is exceptional; a $100M Series C is slightly above average. The scoring reflects that:
Top 10% for its stage = 3x (A ≥ $60M, B ≥ $110M, C ≥ $193M)
Top 25% = 2x (A ≥ $30M, B ≥ $65M, C ≥ $106M)
Above median = 1.5x (A ≥ $17M, B ≥ $45M, C ≥ $80M)
Below median = 1x
These thresholds recalibrate every month from the actual round data – so the scoring stays relevant as the market shifts.
Lead Bonus – If the fund led the original seed round, the score gets a 1.5x multiplier. Leading a seed requires pricing discipline and conviction – worth rewarding when that bet pays off.
The composite score is Stage × Size × Lead Bonus, stacked across all hits in the month. Tier-1 mega-funds (a16z, Sequoia, Benchmark, etc.) are excluded – the signal is more interesting in the middle of the market.
Again, this is not a fund ranking. We don’t have AUM data for most funds, and we don’t know which fund vehicle made the investment. What we do have is a monthly conversion signal – a real-time view of which seed investors are seeing their portfolio companies break through to significant later-stage rounds.
Over time, the signal compounds. A fund that appears once could be lucky. A fund that shows up three months in a row with multiple hits is telling you something about the quality of their picking.
3 Best Podcast Episodes
VenCap CIO David Clark joins Beezer Clarkson and Nick Chirls on Origins to argue that power laws haven't disappeared - they've just concentrated further as mega-funds scale into the billions. He makes the case that the core tension in venture is no longer returns vs. risk, but extreme right-tail conviction vs. LP pressure for liquidity in a world where the best companies take 10-15 years to exit.
Noah Lichtenstein, founder of fund-of-funds Crossover VC, joins Jay Kapoor on CLIMB to argue that emerging managers are the contrarian bet of the decade: even as LP allocations to them are down 81% from 2021. Tracking 120 data points per company, he breaks down why only 6 vintage years produced 85% of all VC returns, and why mega-funds have quietly become a different product entirely.
Jake Paul and Geoffrey Woo, co-founders of Anti Fund, join Harry Stebbings on 20VC to argue that traditional VC is being disrupted by a new model where distribution is as powerful as capital. With 70M+ followers and a $30M fund already in Ramp, Anduril, and Cognition, Paul makes the case that attention is the scarce resource founders actually need, and that writing checks without an audience is quickly becoming the weaker hand.
Personal Notes
First Murph event. We hosted our first VC/LP Mixer in San Francisco. 350 registrations, 180 people in the room – and more importantly, a high-signal one: every 2nd person was an emerging manager actively raising! Ran a tight panel with folks from A16Z, Outcast Ventures, and Orange Collective – followed by 2+ hours of actual networking with food, drinks, and a room that stayed engaged the whole time. Thanks to everyone who came. NYC is next!
Signed with Harmonic. We’re excited to partner with one of the leading startup intelligence platforms. Harmonic aggregates real-time data on 30M+ companies and 190M+ people, surfacing the signals that actually matter through AI-powered workflows. For Murph, this adds a new data layer – which means deeper reports, better insights, and more consistent data-driven drops for both GPs and LPs. Expect a lot more coming out of this!
Previous Editions
Edition #11: 31 New Funds, How Mega Funds Actually Work, Emerging VC Tech Stack
Edition #10: Thrive’s Path to $10B, 132 VC Predictions Mapped, Fund Benchmarks 2025
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.
cool edition, the seed-to-scale signal with harmonic is exactly the kind of layer we'd want to see more of. would help us build a sharper picture for founders on which seed funds actually convert to upround signal vs which just look active