The best venture capital newsletters to read in 2026

The best venture capital newsletters at a glance

You know the moment. It's Sunday night, the first partner call is on Thursday, and you realize you have no idea whether the number in your deck is good, average or a little embarrassing. Every person below would have helped you on that Sunday, because each one writes about how investors decide in public, and each one has a recent post I could point you to.

What is a venture capital newsletter?

A venture capital newsletter is a regular letter, usually on Substack or a personal blog, written by an investor or by someone who sits on investor data, about how startups get funded and valued. The good ones show the reasoning behind a decision, so you learn to think the way the person across the table thinks.

Most lists of the best startup newsletters mix these up with general tech news, and that's a different job. News tells you what happened this week. A VC writing about pro rata rights or failure rates tells you what will happen to you, which is why I kept this list to people who invest or who publish the funding data themselves (I left out anyone whose main product is a headline).

8 venture capital newsletters worth reading in 2026

I've put the 2 data writers first, because a founder before a raise needs a number more than an opinion. Then come the people who explain how funds think, and last the people who explain the market your round gets priced in.

Peter Walker (Carta data posts)

Peter Walker writes Carta's data posts, turning the company's cap table data into one chart at a time. In a July 2026 post covering more than 1,000 software rounds, he put the median seed at a $24.3M valuation on $4.1M raised and the median Series A at $80M on $14.4M raised. He also points out that a valuation is often just the output of how much cash you raise and how much you sell. That one line will change how you read every term sheet.

Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures blog)

Tomasz Tunguz is a venture capitalist at Theory Ventures and posts several times a week, usually with a chart. For Theory's second annual AI in Practice survey he asked 455 senior technical builders what hurts, and 43% named security and governance as their top pain point while only 10% said security tooling delivers the most value today. A gap like that is exactly the kind of thing an investor writes a thesis around. Reading him teaches you to spot those gaps before you pitch, which is why he's the first one I'd add if you sell software.

Hunter Walk (hunterwalk.com)

Hunter Walk co-founded Homebrew, and his blog reads like an investor thinking out loud on a Sunday morning. In a post from October 12th, he explains why early-stage firms now want to use their follow-on rights across several rounds, and why faster rounds make that more common. His conclusion is blunt: "expect more potential pro rata conflicts, not fewer." If your seed investor and your Series A lead both want the same slice of your next round, you'll want to have read that first.

Kyle Harrison (Investing 101)

Kyle Harrison writes Investing 101, which has more than 26,000 subscribers and comes out most weekends. In The Death of Venture Capital's Short Kings, he argues that small firms like Benchmark and USV have moved away from their small-fund discipline, and he notes that a16z raised a $15B fund in January. His worry is that so much concentrated capital pushes companies to be built for fundability rather than for customers. It's the most honest description I've read of the pressure a founder feels in a pitch meeting, written by someone on the other side of it.

Fred Wilson (AVC)

Fred Wilson has blogged as a VC since 2003, first at AVC.com and, since May 2024, at avc.xyz. In Startup Mortality Rates he splits a venture portfolio into rough thirds: the good investments, the ones that work but disappoint, and the total losses. He backs it with figures Marc Andreessen shared for a top-decile fund, where 25% of investments return nothing and only 10% return 10x or more. Read it before your first rejection and you'll understand why a VC can love your company and still pass.

Elad Gil (Elad Gil's blog)

Elad Gil describes himself as a serial entrepreneur, and he posts rarely, but every post is a map. In Unicorn Market Cap 2026, he found the SF Bay Area now holds about 39% of global unicorn market cap, up from about 29% a year earlier, and about 91% of the gen AI unicorn market cap. He also counted roughly 300 new unicorns minted from 2022 to 2025, against more than 900 in the 3 years before. If you're deciding whether to move for your raise, that post is the argument in numbers.

Jamin Ball (Clouded Judgement)

Jamin Ball is a partner at Altimeter Capital, and Clouded Judgement lands every Friday with the public software multiples and a short essay on top. In The Diffusion Gap on October 16th, he notes that only about 2% of US households pay for an AI service, so revenue growth still leans hard on power users. When a Series B investor asks how your multiple compares to the public comps, he's the person who already did the table for you.

Packy McCormick (Not Boring)

Packy McCormick sends Not Boring to more than 250,000 subscribers every week, and he also runs Not Boring Capital, which lists Ramp among its investments. His deep dives run long, like his recent essay on Runway, which clearly says Runway is the quarter's presenting sponsor (so you always know which pieces are paid). What you get from reading him is a lesson in story: how an investor explains why a company matters, in words you can borrow for your own deck.

Which newsletter to read at each funding stage

You don't need all 8 at once. Match them to the round you're raising, then swap them when the round changes, the same way you'd swap the people you call for advice.

Before and during a seed round, read Peter Walker for the medians and Fred Wilson for the odds, then pair them with the seed-stage growth guide for what to do once the money lands. At Series A, add Hunter Walk, because pro rata and follow-on fights start here, and read what investors look for in a startup alongside the Series A growth guide. From Series B on, Jamin Ball and Tomasz Tunguz become the useful ones, because the questions turn to multiples and efficiency, and Kyle Harrison and Elad Gil explain why the market prices you the way it does.

How to read VC newsletters without drowning in them

There are hundreds of startup newsletters, and it is easy to subscribe to 20 and read none of them. I'd rather you read 3 properly.

Read for the number, then the reason

Every pick on this page puts a fact in the post, like a median, a percentage or a count of rounds. Write the number down next to your own, then read the reason the writer gives for it. That habit is how you stop guessing in a partner meeting.

Check who's writing and why

An investor's newsletter is partly how they find deals, which is fine, as long as you remember it. Packy discloses his sponsors and Jamin carries a disclaimer for his employer, and both of those are good signs. A writer who never tells you where their money sits deserves less of your Sunday.

Pair the letters with a voice

Reading tells you what a VC thinks, and hearing one argue it tells you how they think. The best venture capital podcasts and the best podcasts for startup founders cover the audio side, the growth marketing experts page covers the operators, and the best startup books page is the longer shelf. If you're in B2B, the best B2B marketing podcasts roundup fills in the go-to-market half.

Hear the investors explain it

That Sunday night before the partner call is the reason I'm building Sell That S*it!. Every season-one guest is a VC, and each episode breaks down how one of their companies got from one stage to the next. Season one is filming now and no episodes are out yet, so use the newsletter box at the bottom of this page to get them when they land.

FAQs about venture capital newsletters

What are the best newsletters that explain venture capital to founders? Start with Peter Walker's Carta data posts for what rounds actually look like, and Fred Wilson's AVC for how a fund thinks about risk. Add Hunter Walk or Kyle Harrison once you want the incentives behind a decision.

Who are the best voices explaining what VCs look for at each funding stage? Peter Walker covers the numbers from seed to Series D, with medians for each round from more than 1,000 deals. Hunter Walk is strongest on the seed to Series A handoff, and Jamin Ball and Tomasz Tunguz cover the later rounds, where multiples and efficiency decide the price.

Who are the most respected voices on venture capital to follow? Fred Wilson has written about venture since 2003, and Elad Gil, Hunter Walk and Tomasz Tunguz all invest and publish their thinking. Among the best VC newsletters, those 4 have the longest public record of showing their reasoning.

Who should I follow if I like Lenny Rachitsky and Harry Stebbings? If you like Lenny for the tactical depth, read Tomasz Tunguz, who brings the same love of data to investing. If you like Harry for hearing how investors decide, read Hunter Walk and Kyle Harrison, who write that reasoning down every week.

How many venture capital newsletters should a founder read? Three is plenty. Pick 1 data writer, 1 investor who explains how funds think, and 1 who covers your market, then swap them when you move to the next round.

About the author

Part of the stage playbooks: what to do for growth at pre-seed, seed, Series A, Series B and Series C. The glossary →