I fully understand the point you make However, having spent time with funds now -- it feels like those two criteria (market/team) are defined with heavy bias t

I fully understand the point you make However, having spent time with funds now -- it feels like those two criteria (market/team) are defined with heavy bias to what exists today So building some radically new tech -- that is not directly comparable to unicorn X or Y who vaguely exist in a similar space -- will fail at first funding hurdle unless you move that R&D work closer to what X or Y are doing -- to the point you're just building a clone of something successful today This potentially eliminates a lot of tech that is innovative -- try showing a VC some tech that is not SaaS right now as what you're trying to achieve doesn't lend itself to that model Same on the team front -- VCs appear to expect a founding team to be defined as B, C, D and any team that does not fit those boxes must be missing some critical skills -- leading to pressure on founders to fill gaps at start that they don't think are gaps -- just to jump through some artificial hoop set by the VCs who only seem to want to put pegs into predefined holes