"The LP Hunger Games" by Elena Popovici
In venture capital, we love to talk about how hard it is for startups to raise money. Pitch decks, funding rounds, founder resilience — these dominate headlines, conferences, and Twitter threads.
But here’s the truth few people discuss: it’s just as hard for venture funds themselves to raise money.
Behind every GP (General Partner) making bold bets on startups stands a set of LPs (Limited Partners) — fund of funds, family offices, endowments, corporates, and wealthy individuals whose capital actually powers the venture ecosystem. And in today’s tightened climate, finding the right LPs has become one of the hardest — and least publicly acknowledged — challenges in the industry.
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The Current Landscape: A Crunch for GPs
Let’s set the scene:
- Overall startup funding in 2024 reached close to $314 billion — compared to $304 billion in 2023 — up around 3%, based on an analysis of Crunchbase data.
- Many funds raised during the 2020-2021 boom now face down rounds and delayed or unrealized exits, making it tougher to show strong performance.
- LPs, pressured by higher interest rates and attractive, safer yields elsewhere (bonds, private credit), are cutting back on venture exposure or only reinvesting with top-quartile funds.
In short: we’re not just watching a startup funding crunch. We’re living through the GP Hunger Games — a fierce battle among funds themselves to prove their edge, thesis, track record, and long-term value to the most selective LPs.
Smart Ecosystems Play the LP Game
Many startup hubs focus on attracting founders, startups, and accelerators. But the smartest ecosystems — those thinking long-term — actively court LPs.
Why? Because when you bring capital closer to local GPs, you:
- Build stable, local funding pools
- Strengthen domestic VC firms
- Attract international funds eager to co-invest alongside trusted LPs
- Create an ecosystem that is not just rich in founders but rich in capital
Case Study: How the Nordics Are Winning LP Attention
Take Finland and the Venture Nordics Program as a powerful example.
This isn’t just another investor tour or conference ticket. It’s a highly curated, seven-day immersion designed to solve one of the biggest challenges for GPs today: building trusted, meaningful, curated connections with LPs.
Why does this matter? Because LPs don’t want random cold outreach. They want direct, high-trust access to assess both the ecosystem and the players in it. Venture Nordics is designed to deliver exactly that.
The program gives a hand-picked group of only 10 international investors unparalleled access to:
- Exclusive meetings with Finnish and Nordic GPs and LPs, top-tier innovation hubs, and high-potential startups
- A free ticket to Slush — the world’s largest VC gathering (€4 trillion AUM, 3,300+ international investors). Believe me, it is worth it!
- Entry to the highly exclusive LP-only track at Slush, providing insider access to the most relevant, high-impact LP conversations
- Curated side events and networking opportunities that actually drive long-term results
- Off-grid Finnish forest retreats designed for serious relationship-building with key ecosystem players
And it’s 100% free — fully backed by the City of Helsinki, with no application fees.
Program dates: November 14-20, 2025 Deadline to apply: June 1, 2025 → www.venturenordics.vc
And the numbers speak for themselves:
- According to a survey conducted by Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment Ltd), a state-owned investment company with an industrial policy mission aimed at driving economic growth, fostering innovation, and supporting investments, Finnish VC funds from the 2009-2015 vintages have delivered an impressive 20% annual return, with a Total Value to Paid-In (TVPI) of 2.7x and Distributions to Paid-In (DPI) of 1.4.
- As highlighted by Dealroom, the leading source of data on startups, innovation, high-growth companies, venture capital, and tech ecosystems globally, Helsinki's startups are now valued at €48 billion — a 2.9x increase since 2018.
- Slush reports that Finland leads the Nordic countries in exit rates, with 2.9 exits per million capita (2022-2024), compared to 2.54 in Denmark and 2.41 in the U.S.
The Finns understood early: to elevate an ecosystem, you need to nurture both GPs and LPs — and design programs that aren’t just about hype, but about long-term, trust-based capital relationships.
And it happens every year — meaning the relationships and momentum continue long after Slush.
Who Can Be an LP?
Here’s a detailed breakdown of typical Limited Partner (LP) profiles:
- Corporate venture arms (CVCs)
- Family offices
- Sovereign wealth funds
- University and hospital endowments
- Pension funds
- Insurance companies
- Foundations and development finance institutions (DFIs)
- Fund of funds (FoFs)
- High-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and wealth managers
- Government agencies and public investment entities
For example, Stanford University — through its endowment fund — invests as an LP in top-tier venture funds. Why? Not only to generate returns but also to strategically fund the spinoffs and startups emerging from its own ecosystem. This model ensures a tight loop of capital, innovation, and ecosystem reinforcement.
Now, let’s look south to Barcelona
Barcelona is one of Europe’s fastest-growing innovation hubs — but when we dig into the data, some revealing patterns emerge:
According to Tracxn, $1.6 billion were raised in 2024, with $713 million secured in Q4 alone. In the second half of the year, startups raised $933 million, signaling sustained investor appetite.
- Barcelona led Spain’s funding landscape, accounting for over 60% of all investment and cementing its position as the country’s undisputed tech capital.
In April 2025, investment in startups in Spain reached nearly €190 million, bringing total startup investment this year to over €1.2 billion. In Catalonia, €55.2 million has been raised so far (as of May), with the majority coming from Deepull, a Barcelona-based biotech company, according to El Referente, Spain’s leading startup and venture capital news platform.
Barcelona is home to over 2,000 startups, making it one of Europe’s top five hubs by deal volume. It boasts a dynamic ecosystem spanning biotech, health tech, mobility, gaming, and climate tech — and is the birthplace of unicorns like Glovo, Wallbox, and TravelPerk.
Yet despite this momentum, local LP networks remain underdeveloped. Many Barcelona-based VCs still rely heavily on international LPs or public funding. This gap represents a unique window for new LP entrants to access top-tier deal flow and establish early partnerships with emerging managers in a market that’s growing but still under-allocated globally.
Why Barcelona — why now?
While hubs like Berlin, Paris, and Amsterdam continue to mature, Barcelona offers a compelling alternative — a fast-rising innovation hub with unique advantages for investors:
- Lower entry valuations than other leading European hubs
- A strong pipeline of high-growth startups across diverse sectors, from biotech and health tech to mobility, gaming, and climate tech
- An international investor presence but limited local LP competition, leaving room for new capital to shape the ecosystem
- Robust public sector support and incentives for venture capital and startups
- Deepening connections with Latin America, Southern Europe, and MENA, positioning the city as a natural bridge between regions
For LPs looking to diversify portfolios, access fresh markets, and position themselves early in an ascending ecosystem, Barcelona represents a window of opportunity that’s hard to ignore. It’s a city with the right ingredients: a critical mass of startups, growing investor attention, and increasing international visibility.
But what’s missing? A structured, curated program to attract and embed LPs into the ecosystem — precisely the kind of initiative that could tip the balance.
Despite its momentum, Barcelona still lacks a mechanism to connect long-term capital more directly with local GPs, strengthen domestic funds, and elevate its role as southern Europe’s gateway for venture capital. This is the next frontier.
In fact, signs of this evolution are already emerging. In 2024, Aticco, a leading player in Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, launched the Barcelona Finance Hub — an innovation epicenter for financial technologies in Catalonia. This dynamic platform was designed to bring startups, scaleups, investors, and large corporations together with a shared goal: to transform the financial sector and accelerate collaboration.
In this context, the idea of a Venture Med Program is not only timely — it’s strategic. It builds on the city’s existing momentum, leveraging Barcelona’s growing financial innovation infrastructure to attract and anchor the capital behind the capital.
For investors ready to explore, Barcelona offers more than opportunity; it offers access, connectivity, and the chance to help shape a thriving ecosystem for the next decade.
Imagine a "Venture Med Program"
A Barcelona-based LP initiative could offer:
- Curated introductions to Spain’s top-performing GPs — meet the next wave of fund managers driving returns across fintech, biotech, deep tech, and more
- Sector deep dives into Catalonia and Spain’s fastest-growing innovation verticals, from health tech to climate tech to AI
- Private LP networking at insider events during 4YFN and Mobile World Congress — connect at the epicenter of global tech, where 109,000+ leaders gathered in 2025 (Catalonia Trade & Investment)
- Immersive Catalan retreats in wine country, coastal villas, or historic estates — designed for long-term relationship-building away from the crowd
- Hands-on support for establishing local presence, sourcing co-investment opportunities, or partnering with Spanish funds — actionable pathways to embed capital in Spain’s rising ecosystem
With Barcelona’s international pull, competitive valuations, and vibrant startup scene, a well-designed LP program could unlock fresh layers of private capital — strengthening the ecosystem and positioning the city as Southern Europe’s capital of cross-border venture finance.
Final Thought: May the Best Ecosystem Win
The LP Hunger Games are real.
In today’s venture world, it’s not enough to have brilliant founders or top-tier GPs. Winning ecosystems are those that deliberately design capital pathways — building trust-based relationships between LPs and local players.
The Nordics have shown the playbook. Barcelona has the raw ingredients to replicate (and even surpass) that success — if it takes the next step.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not just the best startup pitch decks or GP strategies that win.It’s the ecosystems that know how to win LPs.
