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Weekly Tech Recap: 'Buckle Up': Venture Deals Are Down In LA

Weekly Tech Recap: 'Buckle Up': Venture Deals Are Down In LA

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It looks like venture deals are stagnating in Los Angeles.

That’s according to dot.LA’s most recent quarterly VC sentiment survey, in which we asked L.A.-based venture capitalists for their take on the current state of the market. This time, roughly 83% of respondents reported that the number of deals they made in L.A. either stayed the same or declined in the first quarter of 2022.

That’s not hugely surprising given the sluggish dynamics gripping the venture capital world at large these days, due to macroeconomic factors including the ongoing stock market correction, inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While startups and VC investors haven’t been hit as hard as public companies, it looks like the ripple effects are beginning to bleed into the private capital markets.

Among VC respondents, about 86% said they believed that valuations in the first quarter were too high—one potential reason why deals slowed, according to TenOneTen Ventures partner Minnie Ingersoll. She noted that L.A.’s growing startup scene features more early-stage ventures, whose valuations haven’t come down the way later-stage startup valuations have.

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