February, 2023
All things equal, the median VC backed company today is far behind in its lifecycle for the same capital raised/burned than its counterpart, say 15 years ago. Some companies, despite raising billions of dollars, are still stuck somewhere between the first two phases.
More capital raised/burned is typically bad for equity investors given the dilution. Good reminder for us investors that capital efficiency, which is observed in different ways, is key and something that's ideally synonymous with company culture from day 1 and not an end state.
A catalyst for this divergence is the fact that Adyen is public and Stripe isn’t. And Adyen managed to grow faster than Stripe last year while also being a public company.