I don't really agree with this, with what I've seen. Or maybe we're just interpreting tea leaves differently. I think in a lot of cases, "market is moving in their favor" is not lower valuations, but higher valuations in the verticals that the VC is themselves investing in. Some of that might be signalling for later-stage VCs to invest at later rounds. But I think, other than the onset of Covid, and the last 6 months, I haven't seen an overly negative messaging. It might be true that the immediates (lower valuations) benefit them, but the long-term (no later-stage funding) is not in their favor.
> But I think, other than the onset of Covid, and the last 6 months, I haven't seen an overly negative messaging.
But that is exactly when they could and did do the messaging - if you were out there saying VC is drying up from July 2020 to December 2021 you would have looked like a moron; but the negative messaging was very apparent the months prior and after that window.
It is absolutely in investors interests to paint a narrative of economic downturn - they are bidding to buy something, and they want to buy it at the best price they do so.
I'm not saying that is unscrupulous - that's how dealmaking works, but it is very real.
