>An investor can raise the valuation by putting in more money for the same ownership percentage or same money for less percentage.
That's the confusing part, and it seems backwards. The valuation should determine how much money you are willing to put in for a specific ownership share. It should be an input, not an output.
The valuation is established by the person writing the check. It’s based on their perceptions of the market and how the team is tackling it. VCs don’t really care about dividends, they care about exits. They are trying to buy part of a startup for less than they can sell it to a buyer or the markets. The financial capacity of potential acquirers and their relative need for the startup’s business drives what that check writer is willing to pay. IE the market for a startup’s equity is the input, and the valuation is the output.
As PG recently shared, when an investor puts money into a company it is a calculated bet that the company is actually worth _more_ than the valuation they are investing at. No one invests $1 for a 10% chance of making $10. So if the valuation goes up, it basically eats into an investors expected “profits”.
While I am not going to argue that valuations are wholly rational (and specifically the fact that valuations increase with investment size), it is also true that having more capital may make the company able to accomplish more, and thus raise the expected exit value for the investor. If so, that provides a rational basis for increasing the valuation of the company when giving it more capital. (Present valuation being the discounted future valuation)
