Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing: ‘1% are helpful’
Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, recently criticized the venture capital industry, claiming that only 1% of VCs are truly helpful to founders. Despite his negative view, he continues to raise significant capital for his new robotics venture, Atoms.
Why it matters
It sheds light on the often contentious power dynamics between high-profile founders and the venture capital firms that fund them.
Travis Kalanick certainly has had a love-hate relationship with VCs over his career. As the founder of Uber he was a VC darling, raising what was then an unprecedented roughly $15 billion in venture funding during his tenure. Then, a boardroom battle with key investor Bill Gurley of venture firm Benchmark led to him being pushed out in 2017.
Now, he’s back raising mega funds for his robotics company Atoms, which just nabbed $1.7 billion , led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Ben Horowitz joining the company’s board.
In an episode of David Senra’s podcast that aired last weekend, Kalanick made clear he’s still salty about the Uber boardroom battle and that he tells founders not to raise from Benchmark. (His animus hasn’t seemed to have catastrophically damaged the venerable fund. It just raised another $2 billion across two new funds in June. )
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