# Top VC Experience Tied to 2.83 Times the Odds of Top-Tier Lead Funding

By John Kim

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/business/46123
Published: 2026-11-02T04:01:12.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-02T04:01:12.000Z
Section: Business

> The analysis covered 8,525 U.S. startups formed from 2019 through 2026 and compared 63 founder traits in seed and Series A rounds.

Founder experience at a top venture capital firm showed the strongest link to top-tier lead backing, with 2.83 times the odds versus otherwise similar founders in an analysis of U.S. startups.

Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das analyzed 8,525 startups formed from 2019 through 2026. The analysis compared 63 founder background traits among companies raising seed or Series A rounds.

Experience in the top VC category covered investing roles as well as work as an entrepreneur-in-residence, researcher or intern. Some founders had projects incubated inside funds.

Work at a frontier AI lab and a cybersecurity background had odds ratios of 2.16 and 2.03. A top university background was linked to a 1.41 ratio, while former Google employees had a 1.29 ratio.

The ratios were 0.65 for founders with an MBA, 0.59 for founders educated in China and 0.57 for teams whose oldest founder was over 50.