What VCs Won’t Tell You”: Herd Mentality and the Untold Rules of Investments – An Investor & Founder Roundtable
Here’s what I’ve learned from the inside: venture capital runs on rules most founders never get to see.
Whether a fund invests in you often depends less on your company than on things outside your control. Those include the fund’s own economics, where it is in its life cycle, what its partners are betting on, and what its investors expect from it. Then there’s the rule nobody in our industry likes to admit: VCs move in herds. Investors watch each other closely. When a respected firm jumps into a company or a sector, others rush to follow. When nobody has committed, even great companies can struggle to get a yes. Hot sectors get crowded and overpriced, while overlooked ones stay starved for capital.
I’m hosting this roundtable to talk openly about these rules: how investment decisions get made inside a fund, including ours at SIP Capital, why the herd forms, and how you can use that knowledge to choose the right investors and approach them at the right time. Bring your hardest questions. I’d rather have a real conversation than give a lecture.
Who we are at SIP Capital
We’re a US–Japan ventures capital firm. We invest in early-stage US startups built to scale through the Japanese ecosystem and then globally. We believe AI is moving from bits to atoms and driving a new industrial revolution, so we focus on:
Reshoring and reindustrialization: robotics, automation, and digital twins rebuilding the industrial base
Physical AI and compute: AI infrastructure across cloud, on-premises, and edge, plus agentic and generative AI
Human factors and efficiency: AI-driven tools that make the workforce safer and more productive
Energy and advanced materials: electrification, grid management, and energy resilience
Our check is only part of what we offer. The rest is what comes after: our teams in the US and Asia, our market-entry capabilities, and the corporate relationships that help our companies get into Japanese and global supply chains. We’ve backed companies like Lightmatter, Kodiak AI, EnCharge AI, SEEQC, Realtime Robotics, and XL Batteries.
The untold rules we’ll unpack
The herd effect: why VCs follow each other into deals and sectors, why one committed lead investor can unlock a round, and how to build momentum instead of waiting for it
Hype cycles and blind spots: how herd behavior makes some sectors crowded and overpriced while others are overlooked, and how founders can turn that to their advantage
Fund math decides more than you think: why a VC needs every investment to have the potential to return the whole fund, and how that quietly filters out good businesses
Timing inside the fund matters: how a fund’s age, remaining capital, and reserves for follow-on rounds change whether a firm can say yes
The partner meeting is where deals live or die: how consensus, internal champions, and a single skeptic can shape the outcome
Thesis is destiny: why most “no”s is about fit, not quality, and how to tell before you reach out whether you’re a real candidate
Investors have investors too: how expectations from limited partners shape what funds back and when
What investors bring beyond the check: how to tell whether a fund’s network will move your business, including why Japan and Asia can be a growth lever for US startups
Open Q&A: fundraising, investor fit, how VCs think. Nothing is off the table.
Seats are limited. I hope to see you there.