Trump’s proposed university endowment tax could hurt funding, VC warns

Some VCs are looking at the Trump administration’s proposed massive tax increase on university endowments with alarm, warns Ann Miura-Ko, co-founder at Floodgate Partners.

“There is a proposal right now to take the endowment tax from 1.4 percent to 35 percent, and most people would say, well endowments are super rich, why do we care? Well, they are huge limited partners in private equity, whether it’s venture capital or not. And so it might actually really impact funding,” she said at an Axios Dealmakers event on Wednesday.

Vice president elect J.D. Vance proposed a similar bill a year ago as a senator but it was blocked by Democrats. Even now, it’s not clear if this tax increase will be enacted, especially given how many of the new administration’s appointees and donors are VCs.