On August 26, 2026, Kelly Schricker, who runs Decile Labs, taught a public version of a session VC Lab normally runs inside its programs: LP archetypes. She was dialing in from an overcast Oakland between FounderX sessions, and the hour went to a single idea. Not all LPs invest for the same reason, and if you pitch them all the same way you'll lose most of them.
Watch the full session here: LP Archetypes
This is a recap of what she covered. For the frameworks themselves, we've written them up separately and linked them throughout.
The short version
- LPs split into individual and institutional investors, and almost nobody's first fund gets backed by institutions.
- Roughly 60 to 80% of your LPs will be people who already know you.
- Capital moves at the speed of trust, so the archetype determines the conversation, not just the target list.
- You won't know your real archetypes until you've had the conversations. Track them as you go.
- Whether you can talk about your fund in public at all depends on how you filed, under 506(b) or 506(c).
What LPs actually are, in Kelly's framing
She started by positioning them. LPs provide the capital that GPs deploy into startups. They're looking for returns, because this is an asset class and VCs are professional money managers. They bring network, credibility and sometimes domain expertise. They're kept at arm's length on purpose, because too much involvement can cost them their limited status and expose them to liability. And they're accountability anchors, since a GP has a fiduciary responsibility to do what they said they'd do with the money.
Then the line that stuck: LPs are your customers. Your deals are your product. Founders get most of a VC's attention, but the LPs are the ones you have to keep delivering for.
That framing sits underneath our longer piece on the importance of limited partners.
Individual versus institutional
The first instinct most new managers have is to go find institutional LPs. Kelly's answer is that it's usually the wrong first move.
Institutions often can't invest in a fund one. Sometimes it's too risky for their mandate. Sometimes it falls outside what they're permitted to hold, because they have their own LPs to answer to. And those relationships are long, so the conversation you start now pays off two funds from now.
Individual investors are where first funds get raised. High net worth individuals, exited founders, angels, people you went to university with, your first boss. Check sizes, timelines and motivations all change depending on which side of this line you're on, so it's worth being clear which conversation you're in. Mike Suprovici went deeper on why the institutional door stays shut early in You Already Know Your First LPs.
The archetypes
Kelly walked through the groups that show up repeatedly:
- Personal friends. The fastest movers, because the trust already exists. Usually your first believers.
- Tech executives. Close to the industry, often genuinely excited about where it's going. Occasionally too close, and they'll know enough to argue with your thesis.
- Family offices. The most variable. A small single-family office can move like an individual. A multi-family office starts to look institutional, with a team and a process.
- Exited founders. Capital to deploy and a desire to stay near innovation without starting another company.
- Small business owners. Looking to diversify out of one concentrated asset.
- Alumni and affinity networks. University alumni groups, fraternities and sororities, scouting, the people you met at a golf course. First and second degree connections who already know you.
We've written the archetype breakdown up in more detail in Targeting the Right LPs for Your VC Fund.
She gave one practical tip here. Export your LinkedIn data, feed it into Claude or ChatGPT, and let it bucket your connections. You'll see your archetypes before you've had a single meeting.
Why the archetype changes the conversation
This is the part that makes archetyping worth the effort.
If you're talking to an exited founder in your sector, you can go deep fast. You'll talk about new entrants, where the market's heading, who's building what. If you're talking to someone you went to university with who's now a dentist, you might need to explain what venture is, how returns work, that it's a ten-year timeline, that there aren't dividends and they can't pull their money back out.
Same fund, same thesis, completely different hour.
Kelly's warning was blunt. Spray and pray doesn't work. If you run the same script at everyone, you'll watch their eyes glaze over and you'll collect a lot of nos without learning anything. Tailor it and you qualify people faster in both directions, which means you get to a no quicker as well as a yes.
Motivations, with real examples
She gave three real cases, anonymized:
Learning. A space tech fund had an investor who was interested in AI and space, and used the fund as a way in. The deals, the events, the rooms.
Support. A female fund manager investing in female founders in deep tech. Everyone assumed her LPs would be women. The overwhelming majority turned out to be married men with wives or daughters in deep tech, who'd watched how high the bar was up close.
Familiarity. A music tech fund pitched somewhere between five and six hundred potential LPs across two funds. When they looked at who actually wrote checks, every one came from the music tech world. Nobody committed out of curiosity.
And a fourth group who are simply building wealth. Professional athletes, family offices, wealth professionals. They may pick a sector they like, but it's a financial decision and that's a perfectly good reason.
The compliance point
Kelly paused the session for this one, and said plainly that she isn't a lawyer and this isn't legal advice.
How you filed determines whether you can talk about your fund in public. Under 506(b) you can't. That's why you'll see managers with no website, nothing on LinkedIn about a fund, talking only about the industry in general, until one day a press release appears. Under 506(c) you can.
The rules vary by country, and in parts of Europe getting this wrong can be prosecuted as a criminal offence. Ask a lawyer, and get partners who've done this before. We cover the basics in general solicitation.
How to run the meeting
Several practical notes from the Q&A:
- Don't pitch to a deck. VC Lab doesn't have managers build one until halfway through the program. Kelly demonstrated the point live by taking her own slides down, so her face got bigger and the conversation started.
- In person beats video. Video beats audio. If you're on a call with no camera, stand up and smile, because it carries in your voice.
- Don't name the first number on check size. Ask what they typically invest instead. Come in at $100,000 when they were thinking $500,000 and you've just capped yourself.
- The PACT builds ranges in, with a customizable minimum that starts at $25,000. Fewer, larger LPs are easier to manage over a fund's life.
- Track every question an LP asks you and how you answered it. The toughest question is always the one you weren't ready for, and the second time you hear it you should have a clean answer.
More on the meeting itself in how to pitch LPs and sourcing and closing limited partners. For how this work gets structured week by week inside the program, see How to Make the Most of VC Lab.
What makes a manager succeed
Someone asked whether a particular background helps. Kelly said Decile has looked, and there's no correlation between career, school or credential and whether a manager raises successfully. What shows up instead is curiosity, motivation, and whether you get back up after your best prospect says no.
She was also asked why LPs say no. For individuals it usually comes back to trust, or capital that's tied up, or the asset class being too unfamiliar. For institutions it often has nothing to do with you. They make ten investments a year, and if you arrive in December against hundreds of other firms, your odds are about timing rather than merit.
Watch the full session
LP Archetypes, recorded August 26, 2026 with Kelly Schricker. More sessions on the VC Lab YouTube channel.
Launch your own fund with VC Lab
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Apply to VC Lab at govclab.com. Managers raising funds two through four should look at the Emerging Institute, and anyone who wants to back funds rather than run one should look at the LP Institute.