- In a report from The Information on Friday, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey revealed that investors were using some unusual tactics to get in on funding his latest startup, Anduril.
- One particular investor that Luckey declined to name went as far as sending Luckey a personalized comic book that showed the Anduril team as superheroes with a glowing chest of money, according to the report.
- It's one more symptom of the flood of capital in Silicon Valley coming from mega-funds like SoftBank's Vision Fund.
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The tables are turning for investors hoping to land big deals. Instead of entrepreneurs pitching major firms on their startup, investors are vying for a chance to write checks.
To stand out in the crowded venture capital market, some investors are even having to turn to unusual tactics and gifts to convince founders to give them a chance. In a report from The Information Friday, former Oculus founder Palmer Luckey revealed that one particular investor went to great lengths to get in on funding his latest startup, Anduril.
That investor, which Luckey declined to name to The Information, sent Luckey a personalized comic book that showed the Anduril team as superheroes with a glowing chest of money, according to the report.
"The money was the power that was going to help us save the world from foreign military and protect western democracy from being destroyed by Russian and Chinese military," Luckey told The Information.
The gesture was a perfect match for Luckey, who's a big fan of science fiction, and Anduril, which provides imaging software built for vast outdoor spaces. Luckey told The Information that the gesture was unnecessary, however, because they had already decided to let the investor in on the round.
Competition among VCs for a red-hot deal is not a completely new phenomenon in Silicon Valley of course. But in the past this was the exception — reserved for a particularly hot startup — rather than the norm. Now, with billions of dollars in capital flowing into the valley, and the arrival of mega-funds like SoftBank's Vision Fund, founders have more backers to choose from than ever before.
And that means the lengths VCs will go to in order to stand out is sure to keep increasing. Today it's custom comic books. Tomorrow it could be an action movie starring a CGI Palmer Luckey.
Read the full report in The Information here.