Contrary Partner Kyle Harrison: Venture capital is becoming like McDonald's

On October 31, Kyle Harrison, a general partner at the venture capital firm Contrary, stated that venture capital is experiencing a McDonaldization, where efficiency, measurability, predictability, and control lead to outcomes that are not intended by all parties. He believes the symptoms are scale combined with consensus, and the industry has split into different forms that share the same name. Harrison previously worked at Index Ventures, Coatue, and TCV, and founded the research platform Contrary Research. The article was published on the same day in his column.

He cited PitchBook data indicating that in the first three quarters of 2026, a16z has raised $23.8 billion, accounting for over 20% of U.S. venture capital fundraising during the same period. During this time, U.S. venture capital funds raised a total of $108.5 billion, which is about 39% higher than the total for 2025. The number of first-time funds decreased from 479 in 2022 to 195 in 2025, with 81 so far this year; funds in their fourth round and beyond accounted for 88.2% of all fundraising, the highest share recorded by PitchBook.

Harrison also wrote that the proportion of U.S. venture capital funding attributed to artificial intelligence rose from 39% in 2023 to 51% in 2024, 65% in 2025, and 82.7% so far in 2026. In the first quarter of this year, five companies—OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Waymo, and Databricks—captured 73.2% of U.S. deal value. Since 2023, non-AI venture capital in the U.S. has roughly maintained an annual range of $100 billion to $120 billion. He stated that once fund size dominates decision-making, every deal must fit the fund's scale.