Edition #7: 38 New Funds, Oregon's $61B Portfolio Takeaways, VC Marketing in 2035
Hey folks,
This is Pavel and welcome to the 7th edition (November, 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 construct a Seed VC fund in 2026?“
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Fundraising data cheatsheet: round sizes, valuations, dilutions”
By Peter Walker from Carta
“The value-add gap: what founders really want from VCs”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Seed & Series A: how many deals are getting done & at what check size“
By Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Partners / OpenLP
“How to be a great LP: 10 essential year-end tips for GPs and LPs“
5 Best Linkedin Posts
“10 insights from Oregon’s $61B portfolio across 400+ VC/PE funds”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Is a 5X VC fund still a realistic expectation?”
By David Clark from VenCap
“68% of Funds of Funds invest with broken data. 10 key insights from Carta’s report”
By Pavel Prata from R136 Ventures
“Three ways to combat the 20% fee drag on VC Funds“
By Chris Harvey from Harvey Esquire APC
“What not to do: pitfalls for emerging VC managers raising today”
By Samir Kaji from Allocate
5 Best Reports / Stories
“VC Marketing in 2035: What Changes When AI Does the Work”
By Laurie Owen from Refining VC
By Hamza Shad from Carta
“Should you build a concentrated fund?”
By Stefano Bernardi from Unruly Capital
“US VC Valuations and Returns Report”
By Kyle Stanford, Emily Zheng, Susan Hu from Pitchbook
“You’re Not Special: Hard Truths LPs Need to Hear”
By David Zhou from Superclusters
38 New VC Funds
View all other funds by clicking the button below.
Fund Chronicles
Union Square Ventures bet on “toys” and turned it into a $150B+ portfolio.
36 VC/LP Events
3 Best Podcasts
A sharp Uncapped episode with Mel Williams, co-founder and Partner at TrueBridge Capital Partners, an $8B+ venture fund-of-funds that’s backed firms like Thrive, Founders Fund, Sequoia, and Alt Capital over multiple cycles. Mel digs into how TrueBridge underwrites managers, uses its Midas List data engine to separate luck from repeatable skill, and decides when to double down, pause, or “X out” a relationship.
Another great episode: 20VC with Benchmark GP Everett Randle on why mega funds struggle to generate real cash-on-cash returns and why Benchmark is staying small and ultra‑concentrated. He argues why investors should stop fixating on margins and focus on gross profit per customer, weighs OpenAI vs. Anthropic, and shows how fund size quietly shapes strategy.
And lastly Sourcery episode with a16z GP David Ulevitch on how Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz helped turn “American Dynamism” from a meme into a $600M fund backing founders in defense, energy, space, and critical infrastructure. He explains why private capital is becoming America’s innovation engine and why national resilience is now a generational venture thesis, not a niche side bet.
Personal Notes
We’ve raised a new growth-stage fund at R136 Ventures. I’m proud to have been on the fundraising front lines — working with 50+ LPs, including a major financial institution in the UAE, as well as founders and operators from across our network. The new strategy is focused on non-obvious, high-conviction bets in Series C+ companies, where we’ve historically had strong access and a real edge in helping teams scale into new markets.
2026 AI Trends Deck. Our investment team at R136 put together a 50+ slide deep dive on AI in 2026 – real adoption and value, infra and chips, agentic AI use cases, and where capital is actually flowing (deals, valuations, and next opportunities). You can get the deck + recording by following R136 Ventures on Substack; the welcome email includes both resources automatically.
Michigan Reset. Spent a few days in Michigan to reset, reflect, and recharge – fall there is unreal. It even made me think about going back next year for a full locked-in week: shutting everything out and going deep on Murph. While I was there, I also spent time talking to people about expanding the our team – we already have 4 people on the platform side, and we’re exploring a few more additions as we prep for a major launch next year.
Fred Again.. in Chicago. Finally saw Fred Again live — a big moment given how much his work shaped Murph Capital from day one. His ability to make music out of anything, move between styles, and stay fully obsessed with his craft showed me what it means to build something original that actually excites you. That energy is what I’ve tried to bring into the VC/LP world.
Previous Editions
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