Zach Oschin

investor, founder/ceo, US/LatAm

[Zach Oschin @zoschin]

@augierakow Super interesting. Thanks for sharing @augierakow.

[Pavel Prata @pavelprata]

Which emerging VCs have the strongest early-stage picking alpha?

Standard emerging manager evaluation still leans heavily on qualitative signals – GP background, thesis articulation, founder references. All useful, but by the time TVPI and DPI tell you something meaningful, you're usually already in or already too late.

So I experimented with a quantitative framework to answer a core LP allocator question: which small, early-stage fund managers consistently back seed-stage companies that go on to raise exceptional Series A rounds – before those outcomes are visible to the broader market?

I started with @harmonic_ai Scout (my fav research tool!) and checked every company globally that raised a first pre-seed or seed round between 2022–2026 (Post-ZIRP). The funnel looks like this:

1/ 55,491 companies raised a pre-seed or seed round – the full opportunity set
2/ 4,368 (7.9%) went on to raise a Series A – the base rate, roughly 1 in 13
3/ 764 (1.4%) qualified as Tier 1 Breakouts – above-median Series A for their vintage year, with at least one top-tier institutional VC (from a defined set of 38 firms: @a16z, @sequoia, @lightspeedvp, @IndexVentures, and peers)

For each of those 1,604 companies, I traced back to every investor who backed them at pre-seed or seed — before the outcome was visible. 4,176 unique investors across the breakout set.

Then I computed a simple ratio for each: breakout companies backed at seed divided by total seed investments in the period. I'm calling this the "Tier 1 Concentration Rate".

After filtering out mega-platforms, accelerators, CVCs, and angels and requiring a minimum of 10 seed deals – 20 emerging managers (sub-$250M AUM) surfaced with notably high concentration rates.

A few things stood out:

1/ Several micro-funds under $100M were placing 25–35% of their seed bets into companies that later raised from @Sequoia, @a16z, @lightspeedvp – consistently, not as one-off flukes.
2/ Participant concentration and lead concentration are different signals. Participant = network and access. Lead = independent conviction before consensus forms. For LP diligence, these deserve to be evaluated separately.
3/ The data has real limitations: ~12% of breakout companies had no named seed investor in the database, we can't cleanly separate Fund I from Fund III for a given manager, and small sample sizes mean some high concentration rates likely reflect luck rather than repeatable skill.

But the core idea holds. "Tier 1 Concentration Rate" is an early, measurable signal of picking ability – observable years before fund-level metrics tell you anything.

For LP allocators evaluating Fund I–III managers, that timing gap is the whole problem. This is one attempt to close it.

What’s your take on this experiment?

[Willem @vanlancker]

Free Agency Season 3: Ideas matter.

An eight-week ideas residency in our New York office. Summer 2026.

Select, refine, and pressure-test a startup idea before you start the company. Applications now open.

[Zach Oschin @zoschin]

@bykahlil @krrishd @naturalpay @tryramp This team just keeps getting more stacked! Welcome @krrishd !

[Kahlil Lalji @bykahlil]

Excited to announce that @krrishd is joining @naturalpay's engineering team today from @tryramp.

At Ramp, Krish led payments and helped build the infrastructure behind bill pay, reimbursements, stablecoins, treasury, capital markets, and more.

I met him randomly at a basketball game when Natural was 100 days old. He told me that he’d read the agentic payments memo that I wrote, and I immediately clocked him as an energetic fit for the team we were building.

Right after that conversation, a mutual pulled me aside and said, “there are a few engineers that really matter at Ramp, and Krish is one of them.” So naturally, I spent the next four months convincing him to make the jump.

Krish is one of the few people I’ve met who deeply understands money movement, can move up and down the technical stack with ease, and is so broadly interesting that you can talk with him for hours before realizing just how deep his technical knowledge really goes.

During our work trial debrief walk (a ritual), one line really stuck with me: “there’s no fintech company going after anything nearly as ambitious as Natural. Either I’m joining you or starting my own thing, but the only thing I’d want to start is in agentic payments, and I think you’re doing it right.”

I’m very glad that we now get to say “we” instead of “you,” and even more glad to have him on the team.

If you want to join Krish, we’re still doubling the team. Email me: [email protected]

https://t.co/neMWBA3YU9

[NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman @NASAAdmin]

The world stopped to watch Artemis II.

Moments like this remind us what is possible and inspire the next generation to dream bigger and take us even further.

We are just getting started on this grand adventure. It is time to start believing again.

[Linecook @linecook]

Wow team we are stoked! Thousands of cooks from around the world joined Linecook this week. Check out just a few of the amazing meals being shared and come join us to get the recipes!

[Olivia Moore @omooretweets]

RIP, software as a service (1999-2025)

Welcome to the world, services as software (2026 - ?)

[Zach Oschin @zoschin]

@yrechtman @yrechtman this piece really resonated with me when you posted it back in September. Part of the reason I backed @linecook then. I agree that in a world filled with AI slop, people will seek out real-life skills and hobbies and the communities that elevate them.

[Zach Oschin @zoschin]

@pitdesi 6 years later your wishes have been granted @pitdesi @mengxi: https://t.co/e4KUkyQHo3

[Linecook @linecook]

Hey everyone, we’re Nick & Nick!

For years, we’ve been the guys spamming group chats with pics of our latest home cooking experiments. Burnt edges, perfect sauces, glorious disasters, and the rare meal that feels straight out of a Michelin kitchen. But we kept asking ourselves: why don’t we have a real home for this hobby?

Bookworms have Goodreads

Runners have Strava

Chess nerds have chess .com

Cooks? We’ve got… blurry iMessage threads and disappearing Instagram stories??

So we built Linecook, it’s Strava for home cooking. A place to
• Track your cooking memories and milestones
• Save every recipe you’ve nailed, bombed, or want to try one day
• Celebrate every meal you make with your own two hands

We’re officially coming out of stealth today. Linecook is now in open beta on TestFlight, and we’re looking for passionate home cooks to join our community and help shape it.

If you love cooking, we want you in!

Join the beta at https://t.co/vM8CIuaCiU

And follow along as we build your new favorite social app!

[Dan Romero @dwr]

Strava for cooking.

Finally!

[Zach Oschin @zoschin]

Linecook (“Strava for cooking”) launches today from stealth! So proud to have backed this team from the start and for the incredible product and community they’re building.

[Linecook @linecook]

Hey everyone, we’re Nick & Nick!

For years, we’ve been the guys spamming group chats with pics of our latest home cooking experiments. Burnt edges, perfect sauces, glorious disasters, and the rare meal that feels straight out of a Michelin kitchen. But we kept asking ourselves: why don’t we have a real home for this hobby?

Bookworms have Goodreads

Runners have Strava

Chess nerds have chess .com

Cooks? We’ve got… blurry iMessage threads and disappearing Instagram stories??

So we built Linecook, it’s Strava for home cooking. A place to
• Track your cooking memories and milestones
• Save every recipe you’ve nailed, bombed, or want to try one day
• Celebrate every meal you make with your own two hands

We’re officially coming out of stealth today. Linecook is now in open beta on TestFlight, and we’re looking for passionate home cooks to join our community and help shape it.

If you love cooking, we want you in!

Join the beta at https://t.co/vM8CIuaCiU

And follow along as we build your new favorite social app!

[Forrest Heath @forrestheath3]

Excited to announce our $40M Series B! Super grateful for the group of crazy pirates I have working with me and the incredible investors backing us:

@RibbitCapital
@BracketCapital
@usv
@KaszekVentures
@ycombinator
@packyM
Zero Infinity
Joshua Tree
WTI

https://t.co/UonNhY7WSX

[Kahlil Lalji @bykahlil]

https://t.co/pYAQuKzgpV

[Miro @MiroHQ]

We’re excited to welcome @reforge to Miro! Reforge shares our vision of supporting teams as they transform with AI, giving them both the tools and new ways of thinking to navigate disruption.

Learn more: https://t.co/qBewrHMCyP

[Spline @splinetool]

Today, we're releasing Omma.

Create 3D, Websites, and Apps with AI agents.

Start now on https://t.co/Q6aAIWZYyJ
Follow @omma_ai

[Mary Ann Azevedo @bayareawriter]

"On [IPO] pricing, there’s been a healthy reset in expectations. The exuberance of 2021, when companies could access the market at growth multiples untethered from near-term fundamentals, is not what we’re operating in today.

Investors today are paying a premium for scaled, cash-generative stories with clear paths to profitability. That means founders and their boards have had harder conversations about the right price relative to where comparable public companies trade, rather than anchoring to the last private-round valuations."

I had a very interesting conversation with @PwC's U.S. IPO services leader Mike Bellin. Read more on @crunchbasenews. Article link in the comments

[yoni rechtman @yrechtman]

New York can/should not create a new tax on company building by eliminating QSBS

NY needs to be a MORE welcoming place to build. Don't drag us back.

I signed the letter (linked below)

[Social Graph Ventures @socialgraphvc]

https://t.co/5U5B1ocJQ9

[Pat Grady @gradypb]

closest thing to a victory lap you’re going to get out of @dougleone