There is no doubt that many travel-related businesses have done well from the cash seemingly flowing like water around venture capital ecosystem.
Hundreds of millions have been put into companies such as Airbnb and Uber, for example, with their respective valuations skyrocketing as a result.
And then there are some of the mid-tier brands, such as HotelTonight, Zozi, GetYourGuide, SiteMinder, Goibibo et al, which have all picked up not-to-be-sniffed-at levels of funding in recent times.
But the tech press and those on the ground will readily suggest that the startup funding world has changed dramatically in the past few years.
Belts have perhaps tightened a little bit, at least in terms of being a bit more discerning as to where money is heading, plus a general cooling of the global economies has apparently given some VCs pause for thought.
To try and understand a little bit about what VCs are thinking, rather than simply take anecdotal feedback from startups who have been on the end of a nice injection of cash or snubbed by Yet Another VC, Upfront Ventures has built on some of its previous work with trying to analyse the startup capital markets and interviewed a collection of the great and the good of the VC world.
Partner Mark Suster has already predicted how he thinks the next two years might play out, suggesting:
- Increased loss ratios
- Most flat rounds
- More down rounds
- More structured rounds
- Relatively harder to raise capital
- VCs marking-to-market showing some movements south
But what about the feedback from the VCs themselves?
Here is his deck on the results (in particular, look for the results about market robustness in 2016, burn rates, levels of money invested):
NB:Startup money image via Shutterstock.