Most U.S. VCs are looking for potential unicorns and decacorns, period, except for the smallest funds. The qualitative side (great CEO, big market – potentially, disruptive tech) etc. are of course necessary and I’ll leave to the other answers. For me at least, though, as primarily a “late seed” investor … I’ve boiled the quantitative side down to one basic question: Do I think the Next Guy will potentially (>33% chance) pay 5x what I am paying?.