In 2026, Venture Capital will eat Private Equity It used to be that venture capital and private equity lived on two separate planets: VC = San Francisco PE = New York They targeted completely different universes of companies: --> PE - people heavy biz services, stable/low growth, predictable cashflows --> VC - tech-forward, high growth, high risk, massive TAM What was the playbook for B2B VC backed startups? --> Grow to unicorn scale by selling to other early adopter tech companies, then Fortune 500s XX> SMB and mid-market services - think field services, IT staffing, accounting, construction, recruiting - were always tough to sell into for startups Why? -->Thin margins, high labor costs, and small IT budgets >> But as AI eats labor, these businesses are in play << There are 3 ways where VC and PE are colliding: 1/ Private Equity funds will become channel partners for startups. PE funds are focused on financial engineering and cost optimization. Startups building AI products and services can sell across their portfolio to automate the backoffice and uplevel sales and marketing. PE funds have made AI their #1 strategic priority and have hired central leaders to oversee their portfolio adoption efforts 2/ PE portfolio pages are a startup idea menu Private equity will often buyout vertical software companies whose TAM didn’t allow venture scaled returns. As software evolves from data storage and collaboration to agents taking action and completing work, AI should massively expand the TAM for these categories. Founders will set their sights on unseating these legacy incumbents backed by private equity. All they have to do is look at their portfolio pages for category ideas ...