For 'VC Twitter,' LinkedIn is becoming the place to be

• LinkedIn is gaining traction among venture capitalists for networking and brand building.
• More than half of investors on the Forbes Midas List are posting at least monthly on LinkedIn.
• A ghostwriter for startup investors says LinkedIn gives founders a clear sense of their mindset.

X has long been the virtual water cooler where tech founders and investors come to network, crow about success, or meme the latest Paul Graham essay. While it still reigns supreme in the venture capitalist's hierarchy of social media platforms — when it comes to polishing a brand that helps them stand out in a crowded field — more and more dealmakers are also embracing LinkedIn.

According to a study by the global advisory firm Milltown Partners, LinkedIn and X are seeing shifts in how often investors on the Forbes Midas List are posting. In 2024, 55% of these top VCs posted on LinkedIn at least once a month. That's on par with the 54% of investors posting monthly on X, although that platform saw the number of VCs posting daily on X halved.

Maren Bannon of January Ventures hasn't posted on X in a year, despite having many thousands of followers, because she said the "ROI" of posting is unclear. "I have become more active on LinkedIn," Bannon said, "because that's where the people I want to reach are spending time." She's not the only one.

The venture capitalist Henri Pierre-Jacques said he used to tweet twice a day but dialed it back last year. He noticed that his tweets weren't getting as much traction after X pushed an update so that when people open the app, they see a stream of tweets from people they don't follow. "I don't post nearly as much on Twitter anymore because it's not worth it," Pierre-Jacques said. (He still posts often.)

On LinkedIn, Pierre-Jacques, a managing director of Harlem Capital, shares a hodgepodge of fund news, career advice, and family photos. His recent accounting of what he's learned from the billionaires in his network garnered 1,100 likes and 96 comments. "I used to go to Twitter for big reach, now I go to LinkedIn," he said.

LinkedIn is where the major links of the funding food chain intersect, according to Alexa von Tobel, a managing partner of Inspired Capital. Founders are looking for their next hire. Investors like Pierre-Jacques are searching the platform for free agents working at "Stealth Startup" with the hope of backing the next big thing. And investors of pensions, endowments, and other institutions that supply the capital for venture funds say they're using the site in the course of their diligence.

Institutional investors surveyed around the globe said LinkedIn has a greater impact on future investment decisions than any other digital channel, save for a company's investor relations website, according to a 2023 survey from PR firm Brunswick Group.

"For us, we're a small fund, so we don't have a marketing budget," said Jenny Fielding, a managing partner of Everywhere Ventures. She said a tier-one investor can afford to hire marketers or sponsor conferences to raise its profile. "Our best asset is really the personal brands of our team," Fielding said, "so we just try to get the word out about issues that are important to us and to our key stakeholder, which is the founder."

As LinkedIn gets bigger, other investors are shelling out to make an impression. "LinkedIn used to be a nice-to-have, and we're realizing more and more that it's a need-to-have," said Alyssa Greenfield, a ghostwriter who authors LinkedIn posts for tech investors and founders. Her regular clients meet with her monthly to riff on what's new and brainstorm ideas, but she said some of her most inspired content comes out of a quick text from an investor after meeting a founder.

Greenfield's business has ballooned in the last year, with much of the inbound coming from small, lesser-known firms. She recently signed a firm as a client to build up the LinkedIn presence of six or seven partners. "They're feeling like the best founders out there are not going to give them the time of day if there's no content from their partners online that gives them a sense of what it might be like to work with them," Greenfield said.

Founders know what they're getting when they read Hunter Walk on LinkedIn. The super angel, whose early investments include Plaid, Gusto, and Chime, became a LinkedIn "influencer" in 2012 and now counts 870,000 followers. His near-constant stream of insights, sardonic quips, and cartoons serves as an open invitation into his investor mindset, giving founders a clear indicator of whether their values align with his.

Although Walk said he's not looking for an explicit return on LinkedIn, he believes that posting helps him stay "passively top of mind" in the high-tech circles he runs in. "Hopefully, that reminds them to follow up with me outside of LinkedIn," Walk said.