Venture’s Q2 was calm (and that’s not good)

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

So, what happened in venture capital-land during Q2 2023? A lot, and not very much. The TechCrunch+ crew have been busy as bees in a meadow trying to get our heads around the data. So, we got PitchBook venture guru Kyle Stanford to come back on the podcast to riff with us on the good, the bad, and the late-stage.

Here’s what we got into:

How did American venture perform in Q2 2023? Welcome to the new normal, and why that’s actually bad news.
How are Seed deals faring, and what about later-stage transactions?
How bad is the slow pace of exits today, and what impact will they have on venture capital fundraising itself? More on the topic here.
And, any green shoots popping up? Here’s a rundown of what could be considered good news.

You can read the underlying dataset we were riffing on here, and we are back on Friday with the news roundup! Chat soon!