Published first-time US fund counts sit in the low hundreds in recent years, while VC Lab alone has launched more than 1,000 firms since 2020. Those figures describe different populations, and treating them as one market size misreads how many new managers actually form each year.
For founders, the undercount matters because capital and talent are moving into specialist, often international first funds that never show up in the standard reports. The firms writing early checks are frequently outside the datasets decks quote.
For the full market-sizing read and what Decile's own launch data shows, see how many new venture capital funds launch each year on VC Lab. VC Lab is a community of 1,000+ investors in over 88 countries. This article is for educational purposes only and isn't investment advice.
