What Slowdown? VCs Still Spending Like Drunken Sailors.

2022 is on track to be the second most active VC year ever, despite the narrative that says otherwise.

The S&P 500 is in the gutter. The tech-heavy NASDAQ is doing worse. IPOs are struggling to clear their listing prices and some tech stocks — like Uber — are trading well below their private market valuations.

Yet venture capitalists are continuing to throw money at tech startups, and 2022 is shaping up to be the second most active year of VC funding on record, right behind 2021. The public market slowdown — which limits the returns these VCs can hope for — isn’t meaningfully stalling their activity, ​​contrary to the popular narrative.

“Tech is still set up well,” said Kyle Stanford, a senior analyst at Pitchbook who covers venture capital. “We believe this will be the second-highest year for deal count. 3,600 funds have closed in the U.S. since 2018. All those funds will be in their investment cycle. So it should be a strong year.”

The key indicator that tech startups will continue to get funding is the high level of what Pitchbook calls “dry powder,” or money that VCs have raised but not yet spent. And there is a lot of dry powder lying around. At the end of 2021, the most active year for startup…