• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

As CEO of the $96 billion Sam’s Club, Latriece Watkins is testing her mettle at the warehouse retailer that produced CEOs for Walmart, Target, and Walgreens

2

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

3

As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says almost no one is being hired—except in sales

1

As CEO of the $96 billion Sam’s Club, Latriece Watkins is testing her mettle at the warehouse retailer that produced CEOs for Walmart, Target, and Walgreens

2

Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year

3

As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says almost no one is being hired—except in sales
MPWMost Powerful Women

Why Startups Keep Raising Mega-Rounds of $100 Million (or More)

Claire Zillman
By
Claire Zillman
Claire Zillman
Editor, Leadership
Down Arrow Button Icon
Claire Zillman
By
Claire Zillman
Claire Zillman
Editor, Leadership
Down Arrow Button Icon
December 12, 2018, 8:13 PM ET

Silicon Valley is nothing if not an engine for trends, and the latest one? Funding rounds well into the nine digits.

For Slack, the popular workplace chat service, it was a round of $427 million; for car-hailing platform Getaround, it was $300 million; for mobile bulk shopping startup Boxed, $111 million.

Such “mega-rounds,” as they’re sometimes known, were once a rarity but now seem almost commonplace—and they’re not necessarily a wholly positive development, according to investors speaking Wednesday at Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Yes, there are some instances in which the nature of a startup’s business demands enormous amounts of money. Real estate tech, for instance, “is a category where a company needs a lot of funding to get started; same is true for a lot of the fintech companies,” said Connie Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “For example, our portfolio company Opendoor, they buy homes and then they resell them. You can’t buy that house unless you have capital to begin with. And so now in consumer, you see a lot of companies where that initial business model actually requires a ton of capital.”

At the same time, Chan added, there are some entrepreneurs “who don’t know how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and they may lose some discipline in that process.”

Then there’s the winner-takes-all environment to consider, said Maha Ibrahim, general partner at Canaan Partners. With the exception of Uber and Lyft sharing the ride-hailing sector, markets tend to be dominated by a single startup. So “when we have a company like an Instacart in our portfolio or the RealReal…that’s really opening up a market and owning it and clearly leading in it,” she said. “It behooves us to do everything we can to make sure those companies continue to grow and become the de facto leader in the space.”

But there may also be a more ominous force behind the massive rounds, according to Ibrahim. In the last six months, she said, “[We’ve moved] a little along the spectrum of greed and fear, more to the fear side.” 2019 should be a year of IPOs, she added, but it could also be a year when the market “tempers.” As a result, among founders and boards there’s a sense of urgency “to hoard as much capital as you can,” Ibrahim says: “That is one of the reasons—not the only—in the last six months, and I predict in the first half of next year we’re going to see massive more rounds of capital being raised; we’ve certainly seen it in our portfolio.”

Beth Ferreira, general partner at FirstMark Capital, also added a dose of skepticism in assessing the trend. In taking capital from institutions that are writing massive checks, startups are subject to “more bells and whistles and more hooks,” she said. So her firm, which invests early-stage, is coaching founders on the “pluses and minuses of those capital sources.”

About the Author
Claire Zillman
By Claire ZillmanEditor, Leadership
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon

Claire Zillman is a senior editor at Fortune, overseeing leadership stories. 

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in MPW

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in MPW

Why Meta hired Dina Powell McCormick
NewslettersMPW Daily
Why Meta hired Dina Powell McCormick
By Ellie AustinMay 29, 2026
16 hours ago
Meet the Black women on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list shaping business leadership
MPWMost Powerful Women
Meet the Black women on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list shaping business leadership
By Cheyann HarrisMay 29, 2026
18 hours ago
whitmer
MPWElections
Gretchen Whitmer said she wasn’t running for president. That lasted until lunch
By Joey Cappelletti and The Associated PressMay 29, 2026
18 hours ago
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass seeks reelection following term mired with wildfire and homelessness: ‘I haven’t always got it right’
North AmericaLos Angeles
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass seeks reelection following term mired with wildfire and homelessness: ‘I haven’t always got it right’
By The Associated Press and MIchael R. BloodMay 29, 2026
19 hours ago
jill
MPWElections
Jill Biden on that debate performance: ‘Is he short-circuiting? Is this a stroke?’
By Darlene Superville and The Associated PressMay 29, 2026
20 hours ago
t
CommentaryCoding
Girls Who Code CEO: 70% of teen girls want to work in cybersecurity. We’re losing them before they start
By Tarika BarrettMay 29, 2026
20 hours ago

Most Popular

As CEO of the $96 billion Sam’s Club, Latriece Watkins is testing her mettle at the warehouse retailer that produced CEOs for Walmart, Target, and Walgreens
Magazine
As CEO of the $96 billion Sam’s Club, Latriece Watkins is testing her mettle at the warehouse retailer that produced CEOs for Walmart, Target, and Walgreens
By Emma HinchliffeMay 27, 2026
3 days ago
Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
Success
Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
By Preston ForeMay 21, 2026
9 days ago
As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says almost no one is being hired—except in sales
Success
As AI slashes white-collar jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says almost no one is being hired—except in sales
By Emma BurleighMay 28, 2026
2 days ago
UBS says Ron DeSantis has a problem with his plan to help 92% of homeowners save on property taxes: His own state's data
Personal Finance
UBS says Ron DeSantis has a problem with his plan to help 92% of homeowners save on property taxes: His own state's data
By Nick LichtenbergMay 28, 2026
2 days ago
Researchers let AI models run a simulated society. Claude was the safest—and Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct within 4 days
AI
Researchers let AI models run a simulated society. Claude was the safest—and Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct within 4 days
By Jake AngeloMay 28, 2026
2 days ago
Current price of oil as of May 29, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 29, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 29, 2026
20 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.