50 VC Funding Jokes for the Pre-Revenue Era

"Pre-revenue, pre-product, pre-traction." Valuation: $200 million.

Every term sheet has a section called "founder-friendly." It is not.

The VC said: "Send me your deck." The deck is still in their inbox eight months later.

"We're a value-add investor." The value: A LinkedIn intro to another portfolio company.

The partner liked the demo. The partner also has 47 demos this week. Nobody is following up.

Tier-1 fund: "We pass." Three months later: "Has anything changed?"

The seed round was a SAFE. The Series A had 47 pages of side letters. Nobody read the side letters. The side letters matter now.

"It's not a down round." The price per share: Lower.

VC dinner: Three founders pitch the same idea. The partner already heard it from a fourth.

"We need to see a little more traction." The last fund: Led three rounds with zero traction last quarter.

The term sheet had a 2x liquidation preference. The founder agreed. The founder did not understand what it meant. The founder understands now.

"Founder market fit." Meaning: The partner went to school with the founder.

Crunchbase says the company raised $40M. The bank account says $28M. The difference is fees, advisors, and a yacht.

Every VC podcast describes their portfolio as "category-defining." The categories: Defined by the VC podcast.

"We don't lead." The round: Does not exist without a lead.

The VC sent the founder a 14-question diligence checklist on Friday at 6 p.m. "By Monday?"

"This is the worst time to raise." It was also the worst time last year, and the year before, and the year before.

The pitch deck claims a 100x return potential. The partner agrees. The LP does not.

"We don't do bridge rounds." The round being raised: A bridge round called a Series A-1.

Founder posted about closing the round on a Friday. The wire arrived on a Wednesday three weeks later.

Every VC blog post ends with: "If you're working on this space, please reach out." The reach-outs: Go to an associate.

The fund's strategy is "AI-native vertical SaaS." The portfolio: Three wrappers and a CRM.

"We're a thesis-driven fund." The thesis: Whatever the last hot company in the portfolio is.

The down round was rebranded as a "recap." The recap was rebranded as a "strategic pivot."

"We pass at this stage." The stage: Unclear. The pass: Final.

Every founder pitches twelve funds. Nine ghost. Two offer to introduce them to other founders. One writes the check.

The VC firm's Twitter says they back "contrarian founders." The portfolio: Identical to every other Tier-1's portfolio.

"Don't think of this as a down round." Think of it as: The round that happened anyway.

The VC's Twitter bio: "Backing the future of work." The portfolio: Three note-taking apps and a CRM.

"We're patient capital." The patience: Ran out at month 18.

The pitch meeting was 20 minutes. The partner spent 14 of them on their own war stories.

"Send us your data room." The data room: A Google Drive folder with 6 PDFs and 4 broken links.

Founder: "We're profitable." VC: "Can you grow faster?"

The fund's portfolio page lists 47 startups. The fund's website was last updated in 2022. Fourteen of those startups no longer exist.

"We have conviction." The conviction: Depended on whether the lead investor signed first.

Every Sand Hill Road email signature ends with: "Looking forward to connecting." Nobody connects.

VC blog post title: "What we look for in founders." The post: Look how smart we are.

"Strategic value, not just capital." The strategic value: A quote in the press release.

The associate sent 40 outreach DMs on a Friday. The DMs are identical. The partner is unaware.

Founder closed a $20M round. The founder is now poorer than before.

Annual LP letter, page 4: "Net IRR of 6% after fees reflects a thoughtful pacing strategy." The pacing strategy: Three of the top five checks went to zero.

The fund still lists the company on its website as a unicorn. The last secondary cleared at $480M. Nobody has updated the page.

"Tender offer for early employees." The tender: Half the last primary valuation, capped at 10% of vested, signed under NDA.

The partner tweeted through the portfolio company's six-hour outage. The thread was about founder resilience. The on-call engineer was reading it between pages.

Annual meeting slide titled "Portfolio highlights." 11 logos are sharp. The other 38 are blurred behind them. Nobody asks about the blur.

The fund is thesis-driven. Q1 thesis: vertical AI. Q2 thesis: agents. Q3 thesis: defense. Q4 thesis: vertical AI.

The angel syndicate has 84 members. One of them did diligence. The other 83 will email the founder for updates.

Seed cap table: 23 investors. 2 lead the round. 21 are on the signature block of every consent the company will ever need.

Series B closes. The lawyer mentions the warrant coverage from the bridge. The founder has never heard the phrase warrant coverage.

"We are long-term oriented." The long term: Fund life is 10 years. We are in year 7. LP distributions are due.