Edition #4: 29 New Funds, Raising Institutional Capital Guide, Best Fund Admins
Hey folks,
This is Pavel and welcome to the 4th edition (August, 2025) 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.
5 Best Tweets
“How to choose the right fund admin for your VC fund”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Is venture broken? What 2,000+ priced early-stage rounds tell us about the state of Seed & Series A”
By Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Partners / OpenLP
“How we win: quarterly report example and playbook from Crucible Capital”
By Meltem Demirors from Crucible Capital
“Founder/operator turned VC is not the advantage it once was”
“Why today's bubble lives in private markets”
By Dan Gray from Equidam
5 Best Linkedin Posts
“How Lowercase Fund I became the best-performing fund ever with a 204X DPI”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“30 charts covering everything you want to know about what's happening in startups right now”
By Peter Walker from Carta
“NASDAQ has outperformed pooled US VC returns across every timeframe — even 25 years“
By Jan Voss from Cap May
“The venture arrogance score: a simple formula to evaluate a VC firm's business model“
By Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital
“What GPs and LPs are really saying in August 2025”
By David Zhou from Alchemist Accelerator
5 Best Reports / Stories
“Raising institutional capital: a practical readiness guide for venture firms”
By AngelList
“The fund managers’s AI survival manual”
By Ratan Manehani from R136 Ventures
“State of private markets Q2 2025”
By Ashley Neville / Kevin Dowd from Carta
“Top 10 AI tools used by a16z partner Olivia Moore”
By Andre Retterath from Data Driven VC
“Why most VC firms hire associates wrong (and what we do instead)“
By Mike Dauber from Amplify Partners
29 New VC Funds
View all other funds by clicking the button below…
Fund Chronicles
Fund Chronicles #4: First Round Capital
How a $510K bet on Uber became $2.5B and proved platform-first investing works
21 GP/LP Events
US & Canada
September 9-10 – New York Venture Summit (New York, NY)
September 10 – NVCA Venture Forward: 5-Year Celebration (San Francisco, CA)
September 15-17 – SuperReturn US West (Los Angeles, CA)
September 23 – Venture Capital World Summit (San Francisco, CA)
September 24 – CVCA Specialized Event (Canada)
September 25 – Chicago Venture Capital World Summit (Chicago, IL)
September 25 – CFA Society NY Emerging Manager Summit (New York, NY)
September 25-26 – ILPA Legal Conference (Washington, DC)
September 30-October 1 – Women's Private Capital Summit Canada (Toronto, Canada)
Europe
September 9-10 – BVCA Summit (London, UK)
September 11 – LP–GP Networking Event (Zagreb, Croatia)
September 15 – Secondary Life Markets Conference (Zurich, Switzerland)
September 18–19 – Women’s Private Equity Summit Europe (Windsor Park, UK)
September 18 – London Drinks & Networking (London, UK)
September 24-26 – IPEM Paris 2025 (Paris, France)
September 25 – DDC Financial Investors Conference (Prague, Czech Republic)
September 29-October 1 – SuperReturn CFO/COO 2025 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Asia
September 15 – GPCA Asia Members Meeting (Singapore)
September 16-19 – SuperReturn Asia (Singapore)
Online
September 9 – VC Lab: Meet Top Emerging Managers (Online)
September 16 – VC Lab: LP Roundtable – LPs discuss the current investing climate (Online)
3 Best Podcasts
First up, a thoughtful conversation with Miles Dieffenbach on 20VC with Harry Stebbings. Miles, who manages Carnegie Mellon’s $4B endowment, shares lessons from building private and venture portfolios, the challenges LPs face now, and what distinguishes enduring investment teams.
Another great listen: David Zhou of Alchemist Accelerator on The Carta Data Minute breaks down how LPs choose emerging managers. He explains why chemistry and humility matter, the realities of first-time fundraising, and small personal touches that stick with LPs.
And finally, on Superclusters, Kelli Fontaine from Cendana Capital leads a practical discussion on building trust and open lines with LPs. The episode spotlights actionable ways VCs can personalize updates, invite feedback, and genuinely strengthen long-term investor relationships.
Personal Notes
Murph Platform. We’re about to launch a new subscription product called Murph Platform — a monthly membership to Murph Capital’s private community and intelligence platform that will include:
It's still very much in development, so I'd love your input – here's a quick 30-seconds survey:
Looking for co-builders. I’m particularly looking for a community manager — someone with a real passion for venture capital, who dreams of building something meaningful in the GP/LP space, knows how to grow communities, and can run online and offline events that people talk about for weeks. If that’s you (or if you know someone), drop me a line over email or Linkedin.
Trip to Washington. I paused content for almost 2 weeks in August for a much-needed reset. Traveled across Washington State and its national parks (Olympic, Mount Rainier, North Cascades) — it was incredible! Back now with fresh energy and new ideas, so more is coming soon.
Previous Editions
Edition #3: 24 New Funds, State of VC Fundraising Q1-Q2 2025, Yale's Private Portfolio
Edition #2: 26 New Funds Launched, Q1 Fund Performance Benchmark, Endowment VC Sales
Edition #1: 27+ New Funds Launched, Concentrated vs Diversified VC, Anchor LP Analysis
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.
Appreciate the way you’re curating across tweets, reports, and events - it makes the GP/LP world feel more navigable. TCLM explores finance fundamentals (credit, liquidity, working capital) that often echo in fund admin + reporting, could be a useful cross-pair.
(It’s free)- https://tradecredit.substack.com/subscribe