VC is not dead, it must become liquid again

For this third episode which follows on from the series of notes by Adrien Chaltiel (Eldorado, Board Project), we invited Jean David Chamboredon, CEO of the ISAI investment fund

Is the market going through “a simple bearish cycle” or are we witnessing “a change in the nature of VC”? Behind the alternative, our two protagonists share the same observation: the venture has reached a low point. However, the central subject is no longer the compression of valuations. It is now that of the capacity to produce liquidity.

“I have the feeling that we are also in a corrective phase and reflection on the evolution of the model itself,” explains Adrien Chaltiel, evoking “the return a little to discipline, to the reality of liquidity, to the demands of the market today which are stronger”. The system held up as long as the rise in the markets maintained “illusions of liquidity”. The decline forces us to look at what venture has always avoided dealing with: how to exit, when to exit, and at what price.

AI, locomotive and threat

Jean-David Chamboredon confirms the idea of ​​a trough, while emphasizing what is masking it: “we are at a low point, very clearly, masked by a phenomenon (…) which is called AI”. Without this wave of investment, he adds, the market would be “at a very low point”. But the paradox is more worrying than it seems: “AI is bringing down tech”, because it poses an existential question: “today we are asking ourselves the question of which software publisher will survive the AI ​​revolution”.

In other words, AI attracts capital, while weakening part of the underlying, namely publishers, SaaS suites, consolidations built on assumptions of product sustainability. Jean David Chamboredon also reports a market signal: “some build up projects in SaaS (…) have decided to stop”, for fear of “assembling things which will lack sustainability” and being “made obsolete by artificial intelligence”.

Europe facing its limits of scale

“When I am a large Californian fund, my winners are worth 10 billion. And when I’m a big Parisian fund, my winners are worth maybe a billion. » The gap, he says, is “quantum,” so the recipes cannot be identical.

The 2012/2022 cycle has, however, encouraged the illusion of catching up. “France went from 1 to 20 billion investments in VC in 10 years”, followed by a turnaround, with, as a legacy, “2021 valuations which were complicated to justify in 2022”. Since then, some companies have “changed software”: “they have gone from growth at all costs to profitable growth”. And with that, a change in valuation method: fewer promises, more mechanics. The market no longer values ​​on the promise of future hypergrowth, but on the real capacity to generate cash, with prudent profitability hypotheses and multiples consistent with the market

This normalization has not, however, resolved the central problem of liquidity. During the transition phase, outings became rarer. Not because Europe would constitute an isolated case, the phenomenon is also visible in the United States, but because market conditions did not allow the valuations inherited from the peak to be absorbed. The difference is mainly due to the depth of the exit markets and the capacity to finance long trajectories without unbalancing capital.

The heart of the matter: “latent assets”

Adrien Chaltiel then brings a key notion to read after 2021: “latent assets”. Companies that are “viable, but which are no longer aligned with the pure VC model”, with “valuations inherited from the last rounds”, “insufficient growth”, sometimes “slightly tired founding teams”, and “blocked cap tables”. No shipwrecks, but not rockets. A massive gray area, which no longer fits into the “unicorn or nothing” narrative, but which can still produce value, provided we change tools.

A new exit grammar is developing: “secondary, continuation, build-ups”, and “organized M&A”. He observes that trends can no longer be read only in funding rounds, but in “announcements today of build-ups or continuation funds or liquidity in the secondary sector”. The venture is thus beginning to integrate methods specific to private equity, where value creation does not only occur through growth, but also through the organization of exits and financial structuring.

This trend is confirmed with examples from ISAI: “last year, we sold AssoConnect to Team blue, we sold Hyperlex to Dillitrust, we sold Javelo (…) we sold Studapart (…)”. The common thread: “pretty portfolio boxes” consolidated “in European build-ups”, and a sine qua none condition for the success of the operation: “reasonable, realistic historical monitoring”. The danger, he warns, begins “when historical listening becomes so speculative that there is no longer any alignment of interest.”

“The venture has lost the benefit of the doubt”

Why this shift now? Because the chain of trust has been stretched on the LP side, and Adrien Chaltiel does not mince his words “the venture has lost the benefit of the doubt”. He describes “weak signals” among private investors, family offices and exitors, who expect a very simple answer: “what liquidity can they give me?” “. The canonical model, “we raise a fund (…) we exit in 7–10 years (…) we distribute and we raise the next fund”, seems to him “increasingly disconnected from the reality of businesses in Europe and in France”.

Jean-David Chamboredon confirms, the lifting is “more difficult, longer”, with “many people who would like to, but who cannot”, because they are “fairly illiquid” and prefer “to wait, before resuming new commitments”. And yet, he adds, the paradox is total: “at the start of a revolution like that of AI”, investing would mechanically be “a very good idea”, but you still need to have the liquidity to do it.

Platforms, sponsorless, club deals: pay attention to alignment

Today ISAI defines itself as a “platform” with several “tracks” (venture, expansion, debt), legally independent but connected by market knowledge.

On sponsorless, he clarifies the concept. This is not a simple case-by-case investment, but an operation allowing an already profitable company to organize partial liquidity for certain minority shareholders. Concretely, this can involve a capital reduction financed by debt, without bringing in a new equity fund to replace existing investors.

Concerning club deals, which are currently multiplying, he raises a clear warning: whoever organizes and structures the club deal can receive his fees even “if the club deal is a disaster”.

Governance: from the registration chamber to the management of options

Governance “has progressed compared to 15 years ago” from the point of view of Jean David Chamboredon. Less sterile face-to-face, more “non-executives”, and a clarification of the role: “when I am on the Malt board, I am Malt, I am not Isai”. Adrien Chaltiel links this maturity to performance: boards can no longer just be “reporting”, and must deal with scenarios, optionality, and protect founders from wear and tear which becomes a risk factor.

What this exchange says about VC in 2026

This market moment does not signify an ideological rupture, but a maturation. We are moving from an American playbook to an approach with dimensions more in line with the European market and a plurality of exit scenarios.

Check out previous episodes:

• Latent assets, the invisible portfolio of the venture
• Venture capital: why the question of liquidity can no longer be avoided

You can find DECODE VC as a podcast on Spotify, and Apple Podcast