71 top VCs landed on Insider's 2022 list of investors to watch. Here's what they're looking for in startups to back in 2023
- Despite a tumultuous market for startup investing, VCs still landed top deals at hot startups.
- Behind these successes were the smart and savvy rising-star VCs working to transform the industry.
After 2021 broke fundraising records for venture capital, the tech industry and startups faced a much-rockier economic climate in 2022. Persistent inflation, a collapse in venture funding, and fear in the public markets all shook startup land this year, forcing many companies to cut costs and conduct layoffs.
Despite the economic downturn, many VC firms were able to raise billions in capital for "megafunds," which have over $1 billion in them.
And many young enterprising venture capitalists at those firms and many more were able to source lucrative deals at top startups and wow their peers as up-and-coming stars in the industry.
Insider asked the VCs we named in last year's rising-stars list and the general public to nominate this year's most promising venture investors. Insider threw in a few picks of our own based on investors' performance throughout this year.
The investors selected come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from associates to founding partners at their funds.
For instance, OMERS Ventures' Chrissy Farr made the jump to healthtech investing after working as a journalist covering the venture industry for CNBC. At the same time, Rex Salisbury left the storied firm Andreessen Horowitz to start his own venture fund, Cambrian Ventures, earlier this year.
Other investors, like General Catalyst's Johnson Yang and Bessemer Venture Partners' Alexandra Sukin, gained their first investing experience while still in college.
And for the first time, there are more women on the list then men, which indicates more women are being brought into the talent pipeline of the traditionally male-dominated venture-capital industry.