VC's probably aren't, at least not in the way you or i might, rather they're the recipient of other's investment cash. If interest rates are low, there are fewe

VC's probably aren't, at least not in the way you or i might, rather they're the recipient of other's investment cash. If interest rates are low, there are fewer opportunities for getting any kind of a return, so more investors will look at riskier options. Institutional investors, mutuals, retirement finds etc all have targeted return rates, even if it's "just" x% above inflation. So while their risk models might still only let them invest a small fraction of their capital in high risk instruments, that's still a small fraction of a very, very big pie. Google tell me the US VC market is 68.9bn, measured by revenue or 233bn globally. While it's the extreme comparison, Blackrock have 8.5 trillion worth of assets under management. So it would seem to me that relatively small changes in risk appetite have the potential for huge changes to vc funding.. because it was always a tiny part of the wider market