The title of a recent Techcrunch article said it all: “Venture capital will soon be brimming with Ghosts.” It’s a good fit with the Halloween season and appropriately scary. As the writer opined,

“…Hundreds of new VC firms will either decide to merge with each other to build a more enduring franchise. (Some) will leave the VC profession and others will lose senior partners to retirement and have to figure out what the future of their firms will look like.”

As funding drops, and VCs narrow their portfolio and reserve what remains of their last investment raise, we’re noticing an interesting turn. The easy money VC spigot has been turned way down. While some startups continue to raise funds, it’s obvious that the companies that are best able to raise money are often those that prove they can grow without it.

This article originally appeared on Jon’s Forbes column.