Network-Driven Alpha in Early-Stage VC
Early-stage venture is where the future shows up first. We read the headlines years before anyone else.
It's the engine of modern wealth creation, offering the highest potential for generational returns. VC-backed companies founded since 1979 now account for about 57 percent of the market cap of all U.S. public equities, a reminder that the world's most valuable companies more often than not begin with venture backing. And as companies stay private longer, more value creation happens before these opportunities reach public markets.
Emerging managers sit closest to the white hot center of future value creation. They invest the earliest, before opportunities become consensus. This proximity is power. They are the conduit to the talent, insights, and companies that will shape the future and create outsized wealth along the way.
The Access Class Problem
For most LPs, expectations don't match reality. What feels like elite access often turns out to be adverse selection and fee-heavy deals that lead to subpar returns. This is because venture capital is less an asset class and more an access class.
The numbers tell the story: while early-stage venture has the highest potential for asymmetric returns, it also has the highest return dispersion in private markets. In fact, 60 percent of all funds return less than 1x. A small set of managers drives most of the upside. And the upside can be truly extraordinary. Chris Sacca's $8M Lowercase Fund I returned 214x.
With more than 4,000 funds in-market, separating signal from noise is harder than ever.
The best opportunities are often fast moving or off-market. Staying on top of this fragmented, dynamic landscape requires access, speed, and context that most allocators simply don't have.
The Solution: Network-Driven Intelligence
The Side Letter is an allocator's secret weapon.
Where access is defined by asymmetric information advantages, this is your tool to find information no other platform (public or private) has. We spend our time talking with industry insiders: top allocators, breakout managers, and emerging GPs. The goal is simple. Understand who matters, who trusts what they know, why they matter, and what they are seeing before the rest of the market. We deliver this intelligence through AI-powered tools that fit into your existing workflow, with briefings on emerging funds, their portfolios, and private-market trends that accelerate discovery, diligence, and conviction building.
The Side Letter is more than research. We offer access to a trusted network of peers and allocators who share information, make introductions, run reference checks, and collaborate on co-invests. Being in the right networks is an advantage that compounds over time and drives alpha.
For years, partners at top firms have quietly backed emerging managers as a source of deal flow and insight. These managers are information hubs and critical network nodes. They see founders, companies, and market shifts before anyone upstream. The Side Letter gives LPs that same vantage point, helping allocators build ground truth faster, avoid adverse selection, and access opportunities that rarely reach public channels.
Built by Insiders, for Allocators
The Side Letter was founded by David Zhou and Sam Huleatt, friends, co-investors, and former colleagues who have spent years immersed in the world of emerging managers and capital allocators. Together they created platforms like On Deck Angels, The LP Institute, and Superclusters, helping shape some of the most active communities in early-stage investing. Through this work they've built trusted relationships with hundreds of top allocators and unique access to many of the most compelling new GPs in-market.
If you're serious about network-driven alpha and geek-out on early-stage VC like we do, join us at The Side Letter.