Do Investment Firms Copy Each Other?
Re-blogging a comment I left on Techcrunch regarding a post they had on LaunchBox, a seed stage investment firm in DC.
“The model is based on the much emulated Y Combinator, which has now funded dozens of startups. London based SeedCamp and Colorado based TechStars have nearly identical business models.”
I really don’t get this. Investment firms, especially early stage investment firms where partners get involved with the investments are inherently not scalable. Does Sequoia compete with Kleiner? Sure, but because they are in businesses that don’t scale (i.e. investments per partner are pretty fixed), there are huge opportunities for both and they can co-exist.
This is even more the case with seed-stage incubators like Y Combinator.
Who cares if their business models are identical? Who cares if they compete? There will never be one winner like the dynamics of the startups’ industry that they invest in.
