The 47 firms in the homepage chart
The same firms are compared in 2016, 2020 and 2026. Each year links to the archived homepage used. Download the full firm-and-capture list (CSV).
- 8VC2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Bain Capital Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Balderton Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Battery Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Benchmark2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Bessemer Venture Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Canaan Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Charles River Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Cherry Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Coatue Management2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Creandum2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Data Collective DCVC2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Dawn Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Earlybird Venture Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Emergence Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Felicis Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- First Round Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Foundation Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Founders Fund2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Frontline Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- GV2016 · 2020 · 2026
- General Catalyst2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Greycroft2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Greylock Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Index Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Initialized Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Insight Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Khosla Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Lakestar2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Lightspeed Venture Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Lux Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Mayfield Fund2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Menlo Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Meritech Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- New Enterprise Associates2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Northzone2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Norwest Venture Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Redpoint Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Ribbit Capital2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Sapphire Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Scale Venture Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Seedcamp2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Speedinvest2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Summit Partners2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Sutter Hill Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
- TCV2016 · 2020 · 2026
- Union Square Ventures2016 · 2020 · 2026
Additional word searches
The article selects four phrases from the six-panel study. The full chart retains thesis-driven (one match in each year) and forward deployed (zero recovered matches). These results concern the sampled homepage text, not whether a firm ever used a term anywhere.
View the full six-panel chart · All 16 word searches and matching firms (CSV) · Exact search definitions
The table shows any recovered text match. Direct-positioning context review was conducted for the six headline phrases; the ten supplementary searches below are text-presence results, not additional context-reviewed claims.
| Phrase | 2016 | 2020 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| conviction | 4/47 | 5/47 | 14/47 |
| founder friendly | 0/47 | 0/47 | 1/47 |
| thesis driven | 1/47 | 1/47 | 1/47 |
| ai native | 0/47 | 0/47 | 11/47 |
| agentic | 0/47 | 0/47 | 9/47 |
| forward deployed | 0/47 | 0/47 | 0/47 |
| ai first | 0/47 | 1/47 | 2/47 |
| value add | 1/47 | 3/47 | 2/47 |
| contrarian | 0/47 | 1/47 | 4/47 |
| metaverse | 0/47 | 0/47 | 0/47 |
| web3 | 0/47 | 0/47 | 1/47 |
| sovereign ai | 0/47 | 0/47 | 0/47 |
| taste | 0/47 | 0/47 | 0/47 |
| american dynamism | 0/47 | 0/47 | 0/47 |
| capital | 32/47 | 27/47 | 22/47 |
| money | 5/47 | 4/47 | 3/47 |
How the sample was selected
We started with a curated 60-firm US/European venture-and-growth sample from the existing research. Thirteen firms were excluded because at least one of the three years had a missing or unusable capture. The final matched panel contains 47 firms and 141 documents. This is not a random industry sample or a verified top-AUM ranking. Archive availability and surviving-firm selection limit generalisation.
What the chart counts
Each firm counts once per phrase and year. Red includes any match in recovered homepage HTML text, including navigation, portfolio descriptions, news and testimonials. Dashed grey isolates direct firm-positioning uses, based on AI-assisted context review. It does not measure a complete rendered website, about pages or independently verified behaviour.
The six phrase families are conviction, founder-friendly, thesis-driven, AI-native, agentic and forward-deployed. Hyphens and spacing are normalised. AI-first is not counted as AI-native here, and founder-first is not counted as founder-friendly. The X chart uses different, explicitly combined queries.
Scripts, styles, templates, SVG and archive-toolbar text were removed. Missing image text or JavaScript-loaded content can remain unrecovered. No match means absent from the recovered text only. Three snapshots cannot establish annual timing, a peak or declining signal value.