In a move that flies in the face of the venture capital industry's current obsession with ever-larger funds, Greylock Ventures has announced a new $1.5 billion fund - its 18th. The 61-year-old firm could have raised a "multiple" of that amount, according to partner Saam Motamedi, but chose not to, because apparently some people still believe in quality over quantity.

The fund is 50% larger than Greylock's previous $1 billion vehicle from 2023 and roughly matches what it raised during the pandemic. But while other firms are busy hoarding capital like dragons, Greylock is keeping its portfolio small. The firm's 10 partners will make only one or two new investments each per year, resulting in roughly 25 companies from this fund.

Greylock plans to focus on early-stage startups, incubating companies from scratch - a strategy that gave us Palo Alto Networks (launched in its offices 21 years ago) and Abnormal (incubated in 2018, now valued at $5.1 billion). But it won't ignore later-stage opportunities, as evidenced by its investments in Anthropic, Revolut, and Wiz from its previous fund. The Anthropic investment, made during the AI company's Series F at a $183 billion valuation, was the largest in Greylock's history.

Motamedi estimates about 15% of the new fund will go to later-stage startups, but insists Greylock is still fundamentally an early-stage investor. How early? He says the partners' Monday meetings consist mostly of people's names, not company names. "Often the company doesn't even exist," he said. So if you're a brilliant founder with nothing but an idea and a dream, Greylock might be your people.