The Verdict Is In. And It's Still Being Written.
The first quarter settled one question. AI has arrived in venture. Full stop.
Q2 is asking something more dangerous: who's actually running the firm?
We went straight to the source. We surveyed the venture capitalists and fund managers who are actively backing the future right now. The early results are provocative. The conversation's just getting started. And the results update in real time as more votes come in.
The number one result will surprise you.
Autonomous Agents and Geopolitical Uncertainty are deadlocked at the top. Tied. Exactly equal. The single most exciting opportunity in a generation and the single most destabilizing force in the world are sitting at 11% each.
That's not a coincidence. That's the psychological fingerprint of this industry right now. Euphoric about what AI can do. Terrified about what the world might do to it.
One in four votes went to AI. But not in the way you think.
Autonomous Agents, AI of Everything, and AI Cofounders together captured more than a quarter of all votes. The community isn't debating whether AI matters anymore. That debate's over. They're now asking how fast they can delegate to it, how deep they can go, and who gets left behind if they wait.
The solo GP grinding through sourcing, diligence, LP calls, and portfolio ops alone is a 2023 story. The emerging managers pulling ahead right now are running lean, specialized, and augmented in ways that would've required a full platform firm two years ago.
The result nobody predicted.
Venture Ethics Growth came in third overall with 10% of votes. Read that again. Ethics. Third. Ahead of AI Cofounders. Two years ago this wouldn't have made the list. Now it's reshaping how LPs evaluate managers and how GPs are building reputations. The firms treating governance as a performance variable are winning LP trust in ways the old playbook never could.
The democratization signal is loud.
Rise of Emerging Managers, LP Investment Growth, Diverse Limited Partners, and Startup Talent Growth are all registering as strong positives. A new class of focused, expert managers isn't just entering the market. They're winning it.
Nearly three out of four votes are optimistic.
This community's bullish. Not blindly. Not naively. But genuinely, structurally, put-money-on-it bullish about what's coming in Q2.
And the picture's still forming. Every vote shifts the results. We're updating this in real time and releasing the full breakdown live on March 12th.
Your vote isn't just data. It's your stake in the conversation.
Be in the room when we call it.
On March 12th, we're bringing together the fund managers, LPs, and emerging voices who aren't waiting to see how this plays out. We're breaking down the final results, debating what they mean for fund strategy right now, and connecting the most compelling specialist funds with LPs actively looking to back focused managers through VC Lab Cohort 21.
The future belongs to the specialists who know how to scale themselves.
Vote. Watch the results move. Show up on March 12th.