Seems almost tautological that if there's not a ton of frothy money chasing a limited pool of assets, it will both be hard to raise money, and you'll get better returns because of less investment competition.
It's not tautological, because there is normally a good reason for the raise being hard. Obviously, there are exceptions, such as in this case. However, I'd be surprised if the returns are particular strong if you look at all VC funds that had a hard raise. In many of the cases that ended badly, one would look back and say, "Well, of course that was a hard raise. The thesis was flawed." But that's exactly what people were thinking who turned away USV, before they had the benefit of hindsight.