Founder worries increase as investors pump the brakes

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

So far, 2020 has proven to be a year of surprises and disappointments. Over the past month, we’ve seen companies like Toast go from raising huge new rounds this year at heightened valuations to layoffs in mere months. TripActions is another example. Indeed, BounceX went from a rebrand and an announcement that it had reached $100 million ARR earlier this year to layoffs as well.

TechCrunch has been talking to VCs, founders and all sorts of folks to figure out what they are seeing in the market as we race to learn more about venture and startups in the COVID-19 era. To further that goal, this morning we’re going to run a survey of surveys, looking at sentiment and performance data collected by valuation shop Preferred Return, NFX, a venture firm, and 500 Startups, a startup accelerator and investing group.

As a bit of a spoiler, there aren’t too many smiles ahead. But march forward we must.

Rewinding the clock