Inside Decile Group's January 2026 Offsite

There were two groups of people at Decile Group's January 2026 offsite.

There were the people who have never been at a startup before. They were excited for the bi-annual time our remote company gets together in person for 72 hours of bonding, laser tag, Post-It note and green sticker brainstorming, and pasta. They were certainly proud of the breakout fourth quarter the company just achieved.

And then there were the people who have done this before. The people who have either been at a startup that tried everything and still never got past its small group of early adopter fans, or the people who have been lucky enough to ride a rocketship before and know what it feels like when things start to tip.

Either way, this second group knew how rare this moment was.

You can spend an entire career in Silicon Valley and not get a moment like this. A moment where you are at the company just as it's tipping. Where you just had the breakout quarter. Where you did as much business as you did in the entire previous year combined. Where your problem isn't demand, it's how to meet the demand. Where you can actually see a feasible path to an IPO.

And yet, the bricks on that path still need to be laid. It's going to be hard, maybe backbreaking at times, work to get there. The business isn't yet a flywheel triple-triple-double-doubling on its own. There are still potentially existential problems that have to be solved, and have to be solved quickly.

Every single person in that room (and on the Zoom) will be pivotal to the company in the next twelve months. But also, every single person in that room could be poised for a gargantuan success if we pull it off. And the team is still small enough that we all fit in one room, even if all the people on Zoom were there in person.

So often in Silicon Valley, you could work 24 hours a day and your company still won't take off because of timing, product market fit, or just bad luck. When "all" you have to do is work hard and solve possibly-existential problems, you've actually graduated to the next level.

And that's where the chant came in.

The goal is simple: launch 250 funds in 2026. We all said it out loud. It was on Post-Its around the room, and as products were debated the question was asked: "Will this help us get to 250?"

But 250 isn't just extending our customer base. It's extending our family.

Family was the theme of the offsite, particularly when it came to the network of VCs and LPs that are vital to the Decile ecosystem and our vision for making venture capital a force for good in the world.

When customers walked in, it was like rockstars had entered the room. They are the reason we all do what we do. We greedily lapped up their product suggestions.

Later that night, we held a massive "Decile Family Reunion" at the Modernist in downtown San Francisco with nearly 200 people.

Later that night, we held a massive "Decile Family Reunion" at the Modernist in downtown San Francisco with nearly 200 people.

Everyone in the ecosystem wrote something on their name tag that they could offer other members of the community: walk-and-talks when someone was stressed about fundraising, due diligence help on biotech companies, or simply friendship. Being a solo GP can feel lonely, and here were 99 other people offering each person in that room something to help their journey before they even shook hands.

The event culminated in a talk by Adeo Ressi, who captured this moment and what is being created in the broader Decile family now that we are four years and nearly 1,000 funds in. Already, managers in our family have invested in more than a dozen unicorns, in aggregate rivaling some of the best venture funds in the world.

Silicon Valley likes to talk about its "mafias": groups that work together, often spun out of a single company, who help one another, share deals, and invest in one another to build a next generation of great companies. We don't love the grubby crime association, but this year Adeo said we want to focus on bringing the Decile Family together to do more for one another.

To cement this as a visual, Adeo tapped a digital candle to someone in the crowd. That person turned their candle on and tapped the next person, and so on, until the entire crowd had lit up candles.

Before our family went back to networking, we heard from a few managers about what it meant to be part of the Decile Family. Martin Tobias talked about the moment he was sold on the Decile community. It was when he realized what it had in common with the Burner community: giving first, without the expectation of getting anything in return.

There are enough places in Silicon Valley where it's all about a quid pro quo.

Here, you just have to show up.

There are nearly 1,000 funds in the Decile family now. Behind every one of them is a manager who decided to bet on themselves, and a community that bet on them right back. We are proud of every single one of them. There are still big problems to solve and a lot of bricks to lay. But if there is one thing this offsite made clear, it's that we are not building alone. 

The tipping point is here, and it's going to take all of us to turn it into something the venture capital industry has never seen before. 

250 funds. One family. Let's go.