The demographic foundation of American capital formation just shifted. Majorly.

In 2020, only three states had more residents over 65 than under 18: Maine, Vermont, and Florida.

By 2024, that number jumped to eleven states:

• Delaware
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Maine (median age: 44.8 years, oldest in the nation)
• Montana
• New Hampshire
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• West Virginia

If you're a GP struggling to raise capital, especially for early-stage funds, this isn't just a "demographic curiosity".

This is the structural explanation for why your fundraising suddenly got WAY harder, and why your old playbook stopped working.

Your Capital Formation Problem Is Actually a MOIC/IRR Problem

Here's what most GPs don't understand: LPs can smell capital formation problems before you even finish your deck.

When you struggle to raise, institutional investors don't think "this GP is having bad luck" or "the market is tough right now."

They think: "This GP is a poor steward of capital, and other LPs already figured that out."

Limited Partners operate on information asymmetry and social proof.

When a fund closes quickly with marquee LPs, it signals that sophisticated investors did deep diligence and liked what they found.

When a fund limps along for 18+ months, misses multiple closes, or can't attract name-brand institutions, it signals the opposite.

Fair or not, your inability to raise capital efficiently becomes evidence of your inability to deploy capital efficiently.

LP Brain Logic

The logic chain in LP minds goes like this:

1. If you can't sell your fund, you probably can't source deals. The skills overlap significantly. Relationship building, credible positioning, creating urgency, these matter in both contexts.
   
   
2. If other LPs aren't excited, why should we be? Sophisticated institutions have already passed. What do they know that you're not telling us?
   
   
3. If you're desperate for capital, you'll make desperate investments. Portfolio companies can smell it too. You'll pay higher valuations, accept worse terms, and deploy into s****y opportunities because you need to put capital to work.
   
   
4. Your fumbled raise predicts fumbled returns. The correlation between clean fundraising and strong performance isn't perfect, but it's real. GPs who command capital tend to command better deal flow, better terms, and better outcomes.
   
   

This creates a vicious cycle: fundraising problems cause performance problems, which cause worse fundraising problems. The stink compounds.

Your MOIC and IRR start deteriorating the moment your fundraising stalls. Not because of market conditions. Because you've signaled to the entire ecosystem that you're not a first-choice steward of capital.

Three Things Early-Stage GPs Must Know Right Now

1. Stop Fundraising in Dying Markets

If you're an early-stage GP already struggling to raise, you can't afford to waste time in states where the LP base is structurally wrong for your strategy.

Maine, Vermont, West Virginia: these aren't venture markets anymore, if they ever were.

Even Delaware and Pennsylvania, traditional fundraising corridors, are shifting toward capital preservation as their populations age and net asset decumulation replaces accumulation.

Peak earning and saving years occur between ages 45-65.

Once populations skew heavily toward retirees, you see withdrawals, not contributions. Your LP universe in these states increasingly includes:

• Endowments and foundations drawing down to meet distribution requirements
• Family offices managing wealth for aging principals focused on preservation over growth
• Public pension funds with rising distribution obligations as retiree-to-worker ratios climb
• RIAs managing portfolios for clients prioritizing income over appreciation

Older LPs don't write checks to early-stage funds. They've seen too many blow-ups. They need current yield and capital preservation, not J-curves and 10-year lockups.

You need to be ruthless about geographic prioritization.

Texas, Utah, North Carolina, states with younger populations and growing wealth concentrations are where early-stage capital is accumulating.

This isn't about writing off entire regions forever. It's about recognizing that if you're already having trouble closing checks, you can't afford to fish in ponds that are draining fast.

2. Your 2020 Fundraising Playbook Is Obsolete

The jump from 3 to 11 states in four years means the landscape changed fundamentally during or right after COVID.

If you're running the same fundraising strategy you used in 2019-2020, you're operating on outdated assumptions about where capital sits and what LPs prioritize.

The LPs who wrote checks then may be drawing down now.

The family offices that were growth-focused may have shifted to income generation as principals aged. COVID-19 began nearly 6 years ago.

The institutions that were accessible may have closed to new manager relationships as their portfolios matured.

You need to completely refresh your understanding of which institutions are still accumulating capital versus distributing it. This means new research, new targeting, new messaging, new positioning.

Using old-ass lists and old relationships will burn months you don't have. This is exactly how you destroy MOIC and IRR.

Every month you spend chasing the wrong LPs is another month that signals to the right LPs that nobody wants your fund.

3. Flip the Narrative from Growth to Inevitability

Older LPs don't respond to "this could be huge" pitching.

They've heard it a thousand times.

They've watched most of those huge opportunities implode.

If you're raising early-stage capital in an aging LP environment, you need to emphasize why your investments are inevitable rather than speculative.

What structural trends make your portfolio companies essential rather than optional? What demographic, regulatory, or technological shifts make failure to invest more risky than investing?

This isn't about being less ambitious. It's about framing ambition around certainty. Aging populations are risk-averse, but they're f******g terrified of being left behind on major secular trends.

Show them the train is leaving the station with or without them, not that there might be a train someday. They do not care if a train may be coming. Not relevant.

The irony: aging populations create massive investable opportunities in healthcare services, senior housing, home care infrastructure, and longevity-focused businesses. GPs with thesis-driven exposure to these sectors will find receptive audiences among both impact-focused and return-seeking LPs.

You can use the demographic problem to solve your fundraising problem.

How We Make the Stink Go Away

At LP Blueprint, we've worked with 142+ investment firms facing exactly this problem. The common thread: they were all working too hard for too little progress, and every unsuccessful meeting made the next one harder.

The solution isn't working harder at fundraising. It's making LPs pursue you instead.

Our "flip the chase" methodology reverses the dynamic entirely. Instead of you chasing LPs who smell desperation, we position you so institutional investors pursue you as the scarce resource.

This isn't marketing fluff. Our clients raise an average of $14.1M per month, and that's just the ones we work with on a week to week basis.

The numbers are stark:

1. Our clients generate $732,428 in LP pipeline per day on average.

2. For context, these are predominantly first and second-time fund managers (with one third-time manager in the mix) achieving an average GP Velocity of $998,154.

3. Industry benchmarks for fund managers sit between $30,000 to $100,000 per day. That's not a marginal improvement. 

That's a fundamental shift in how capital formation works.

When LPs chase you instead of you chasing them, everything changes. You stop signaling that you're a poor steward of capital. You start signaling scarcity, selectivity, and social proof. The vicious cycle becomes a virtuous one.

How To Solve Your MOIC/IRR (Capital Formation) Problem

Capital OS Platform ($1,000/year)
Our foundational system for fund managers who want to professionalize their fundraising infrastructure. You get access to our proprietary non-anchor LP database, fundraising playbooks, pitch templates, and the core Capital OS methodology. Perfect for emerging managers building their first institutional fundraising process or established managers who need to modernize their approach for the post-2020 environment.

Capital OS Platform - Watch Video

Capital OS Premium ($7,875/year per GP)
For GPs who need hands-on guidance implementing our "flip the chase" methodology. You get everything in Platform plus: our huge anchor LP database, weekly strategy sessions, direct access to our team for fundraising questions, advanced LP intelligence, positioning workshops, and customized playbooks for your specific fund strategy and geography. This tier works for managers raising $20M-$70M who need expert guidance but can execute the fundraising themselves.

Capital OS Premium - Watch Video

Capital OS Advisory ($50K-$60K/year)
Our white-glove advisory service for GPs raising $70M+ funds who need comprehensive support. We become your outsourced capital formation team: strategic positioning, LP targeting and research, meeting preparation, pitch refinement, negotiation support, and close management. We work alongside you in real-time to compress your fundraising timeline and maximize your close rates. Our Advisory clients typically close their funds 40-60% faster than they would have independently.

Lp Blueprint Advisory - Watch Video

The Window Is Closing

Within 15 years, most U.S. states will have more retirees than children. The demographic shift happening in these 11 states today is the preview of what's coming nationally.

Fund managers who adapt their fundraising geography, positioning, and LP targeting now will have significant competitive advantages. Those who keep running the 2020 playbook will find themselves wondering why capital formation keeps getting harder, why their MOIC keeps compressing, and why LPs keep passing.

The GPs who figure this out first won't just survive the demographic transition. They'll dominate it.

You'll Know When You're Ready

If you're struggling to raise, it's not because LPs don't have money. It's because they're not chasing you.

You already know this. You've known it for months, maybe longer.

Every failed meeting, every ghosted follow-up, every "we'll circle back next quarter" confirms what you don't want to admit: what you're doing isn't working, and doubling down on it won't change the outcome.

The question isn't whether you need help. The question is whether you're ready to lead.

Leaders acknowledge when their current approach has stopped working.

They recognize when market conditions have shifted beneath them. They understand that continuing to execute a failed strategy isn't persistence, it's denial.

Managers keep doing what's comfortable, even when it's not working.

They blame the market, the LPs, the economy, anything except the strategy.

They convince themselves that just a few more meetings, just a few more months, just a little more hustle will break through. It won't.

You will know when you're ready to make the pain go away.

You'll know when you're tired of explaining to your partners why the fund still isn't closed.

When you're exhausted from pretending that your 18-month fundraising slog is "normal" in this environment. When you realize that every month you spend limping toward a close is another month your competitors are deploying capital and building track records.

You'll know when you're ready to stop being chased and start being pursued.

When that moment comes, when you're ready to lead rather than manage, you'll reach out.

Not before. Anything less is denial.

Until then, join 128,000+ fund managers getting our weekly insights on institutional capital formation. You'll know when you're ready for more.

Adam Metz is the founder and Managing Partner of LP Blueprint, a capital formation advisory firm serving 142 investment firms across venture capital, private equity, and real estate. LP Blueprint reaches nearly 11 million views annually with consistent 23-27% open rates, making it one of the most-read publications in the invesment industry.