Great question Todd McKissick and I can only add that I don’t know how many more or less startups has SV funded in the following real-world areas.

I would add though, that Venture Capital investing isn’t designed for and doesn’t serve continuous family run businesses — profitable or not. It has nothing to do with Booms.

Banks, grants, and business partners/investors, that’s where such business types get funding.

Venture Capital investment doesn’t focus only on massive opportunities and valuations… but it does focus on investing where that capital investment results in a more valuable business wherein the business is likely to be acquired (or go public). Venture Capital is the business of putting investors’ capital to work where it can draw out a far greater amount in 7–10 years. It doesn’t have to be massive; it’s about how it works — if I put in $500k to a company as a Venture Capital investor, I seek to get (on average) $10–15MM back in a decade.

Now, obviously, that rarely happens since most startup investments fail… that’s why it seeks such substantial outcomes relative to the investment — such sizeable ROI offsets the fact that most of what was invested doesn’t return at all.

Family run, profitable even, or simply “traditional” businesses aren’t wrong, that’s not the consideration! It’s just that that type of business doesn’t apply for Venture Capital investors. Unless you’ve seen how that plumbing business warrants $1MM and will “exit” (sell) in a few years at a size that returns $10MM to that investor.

Unless such businesses do that, other sources of capital fund.