Yes, they care, although this of course varies. Remember that in this situation: one of the founders had already left, another was "giving up", and other key employees had left. Tech companies were laying off like crazy, and your chance of getting your money back via another round was about 0%. Would you be willing to subsidize a bunch of jobs in a bad-trajectory company with disinterested/absent leadership? Or would you instead think to engineer an outcome like this where the employees get a job offer and a bonus, one of your other investments gets a chance at top talent, a serial entrepreneur founder remains happy with you, and you get some money back?
Depending on timing (and here it was just over a year between the round closing and the acquisition), you may be able to easily re-deploy the capital you get back as another investment included in the same fund, and get another shot at a 100x return.
I'd be curious to hear what others think (particularly actual VCs, not just pretend ones like me) but this seems like a very rational outcome to me.
Depending on timing (and here it was just over a year between the round closing and the acquisition), you may be able to easily re-deploy the capital you get back as another investment included in the same fund, and get another shot at a 100x return.
I'd be curious to hear what others think (particularly actual VCs, not just pretend ones like me) but this seems like a very rational outcome to me.