Valuations in the venture capital (VC) market are either in decline or flattening out, primarily due to inflated expectations, says Michael David, Managing Director for the Equity Fund Resources team at Bridge Bank.

“Startup companies always have nonlinear rates of progress,” David says. “Companies haven’t performed as well as they had been forecasted and the stable of investors has pulled back. Many are looking at this correction cycle as an opportunity to invest in good companies, but they are not going to pay the valuations they did a year ago.”