VC: 'SaaS Apocalypse is BS,' China Leads AI
Lead Edge Capital's Mitchell Green is pushing back on the tech downturn narrative. On a recent 20VC podcast, he called the SaaS slump a "dead money period, not an apocalypse," blaming analyst overenthusiasm. He also argued that ByteDance is the world's most advanced AI company and that Western investors are underestimating China's technical creativity and cost efficiency.
Lead Edge Capital, the firm backing Mitchell Green, focuses on growth-stage companies, typically investing $20 million to $150 million. Their portfolio includes high-profile names like ByteDance, Asana, Spotify, and Uber, illustrating their strategy of backing established tech players rather than early-stage ventures. The "dead money" SaaS period Green describes is reflected in valuation multiples. After a 2021 peak where some firms traded at over 30x revenue, the median EV/Revenue multiple for public SaaS companies stabilized around 6.1x by mid-2025. Investors have shifted focus from pure growth to the "Rule of 40," rewarding companies that balance growth with profitability. Green's assertion about ByteDance's AI prowess comes as China leads the world in AI patent applications and has launched state-backed funds, including an $8.2 billion fund for AI start-ups. However, U.S. private AI investment in 2024 was nearly 12 times greater than China's, and access to cutting-edge GPUs remains a significant constraint due to export controls. This has led to compute capacity challenges for new models like ByteDance's Seedance 2.0. In the location intelligence space, funding continues to flow. Dataplor, a provider of global Point of Interest data, secured a $10.6 million Series A in April 2024. More recently, location analytics firm Unacast raised a Series C round in December 2025, while LocationMind secured a Series B in September 2025. The sports and gaming verticals are increasingly leveraging geolocation for fan engagement. Teams are using geofencing to send location-based marketing offers to fans near merchandise stands and deploying AR applications that overlay player stats on live-action views in stadiums. The health and fitness app market represents a significant growth opportunity, projected to expand from $13.81 billion in 2026 to over $45 billion by 2035. This growth is driven by the integration of AI for personalization and the increasing adoption of wearable devices, with nearly one in three Americans using them to monitor health.
