20VC with Harry Stebbings
20VC, hosted by Harry Stebbings, takes you inside the world of Venture Capital, Startup Funding and The Pitch. Join Harry and discover how you can attain funding for your business by listening to what the most prominent investors are directly looking for in startups, providing easily actionable tips and tricks that can be put in place to increase your chances of getting funded. The Twenty Minute VC also provides an instructional guide as to what it takes to get employed in the Venture Capital industry, with VCs giving specific advice on how to get noticed from the crowd and increasing your chances of employment. Our amazing Venture Capitalists also provide their analysis of the current technology market, providing advice and suggestions on the latest investing trends and predictions. Join us so you can see how you can get big, powerful improvements, fast.
All Episodes
a16z Raises $10BN in New Funds | Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation | OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses | Why IRR is a BS Metric and Three Ways to Win in VC Today
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has raised $10 billion in new funds, marking one of the largest fundraising rounds in venture capital history. In this episode of 20VC, host Harry Stebbings is joined by Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, and Rory O’Driscoll, General Partner at Scale Venture Partners, to discuss what this means for the venture ecosystem and where capital allocation is headed next. The conversation dives into the details of a16z’s latest raise, the strategic implications for early- and late-stage founders, and how the venture landscape is evolving amid shifts in AI, infrastructure, and global capital flows. They also explore Mercor’s $350M raise at a $10B valuation—how the company scaled so rapidly, what differentiates it in the AI talent marketplace, and what this signals for startups blending automation, freelancing, and AI-driven labor models. Later in the episode, the guests analyze patterns behind 'spray and pray' investing, the role of option checks in venture capital, and why IRR might be an overrated metric in evaluating fund performance. This conversation captures the pulse of modern venture capital—from mega-funds to micro-checks—and how top investors think about risk, scale, and the next decade of innovation.
Sequoia's David Cahn on The Winners and Losers in AI | The $0-$100M Revenue Club: Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead? | The Future of Defence: Who Wins and Who Loses | How to Analyse Margins and Growth Rates in a World of AI
David Cahn is a Partner at Sequoia Capital and one of the world’s leading AI investors. At Sequoia David has led investments in Clay, Juicebox, Sesame, Kela, Stark, etc.. Before Sequoia, David was a General Partner at Coatue where he led investments in Notion and Hugging Face.
Why VC Today is Worse Than 2021 | Why Vertical SaaS is a Bad Investment Today | Why We Are Deluding Ourselves on Growth Expectations | Revolut Raises $3BN at a $75BN Valuation | Benchmark Adds Their Newest General Partner
20VC’s Harry Stebbings hosts Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) & Rory O’Driscoll (Scale VP) on Vertical SaaS, AI investing, Revolut $75B, OpenAI cloud play & TAM myth.
Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation
Alex Bouaziz discusses Deel's remarkable growth journey, including their recent $300M fundraise at a $17BN valuation, achieving $1BN+ in ARR, and their first $100M revenue month. The conversation covers their acquisition strategy, leadership culture, fundraising during Covid, and insights on scaling a global payroll company while remaining profitable for over 3 years.
Thinking Machines Co-Founder Joins Meta for $3.5BN, Industry Venture's $665M Acquisition
A discussion covering major tech industry moves including Goldman Sachs's $665M acquisition of Industry Ventures, Thinking Machines co-founder's $2BN raise before joining Meta, SoftBank's $5BN leverage against ARM stock for OpenAI investment, and insights into venture capital portfolio management and future alpha generation in 2025.
20VC: Atlassian CEO on Why Everything is Overvalued & Are We in an AI Bubble | Do Margins Matter & Does Defensibility Exist in an AI World | Is Per Seat Pricing Dead & The Future of Vibe Coding with Mike Cannon-Brookes
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Atlassian, the $50BN software giant behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Since founding the company in 2002, he has scaled it to over 300,000 customers globally, generating more than $5BN in annual revenue. Atlassian now employs over 10,000 people across 13 countries and is one of the most successful bootstrapped-to-IPO stories in tech history. Mike is also a leading climate investor and co-owner of several major sports teams.
20VC: OpenAI's Multi $BN Deal with AMD | Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds | Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Harvey vs Legora | Chamath is Back: The SPAC is Back
A discussion covering major tech industry developments including OpenAI's partnership with AMD, Microsoft's OpenAI partnership challenges, OpenAI's Developer Day announcements, venture capital valuations, IPO prospects for 2025, Vercel's $300M raise, and insights into kingmaking in venture capital. The episode also covers the return of SPACs and Polymarket's significant funding round.
20VC: Cerebras CEO on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO | NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Worried About Growth | Concentration of Value in Mag7: Will the AI Train Come to a Halt | Can the US Supply the Energy for AI with Andrew Feldman
Andrew Feldman is Co-Founder & CEO of Cerebras, building the world's fastest AI inference and training. Cerebras recently closed a $1.1BN Series G round at an $8.1 billion valuation, backed by top names including Fidelity, Atreides, Tiger Global, Valor Equity and 1789 Capital. Under his leadership, they’ve leapfrogged GPU limits in inference, operate at trillions of tokens per month, and are filing to go public soon.