[muzani]

Unlikely, and it sounds like a misunderstanding.

1. There's little tactical advantage from doing something like this. Startups live and die often by lack of demand, not from competitors. Industrial espionage exists, sure, but it makes little sense to spy on a competitor instead of just investing in them.

2. It's harder for VCs to find good companies to invest in than for good companies to find VCs. Word spreads fast (this thread is an example). Shady VCs will get figured out. Since VC is usually a long game, it's counter-productive, unless it's some kind of social engineering in the first place.

3. There's a lot of overlap with new ideas. One of my consulting clients was an experienced entrepreneur, mentor, startup judge. On one of his mentoring sessions, a startup came up with the same idea. We had been building it for a while, so no idea was stolen, and he even poked fun at the team that seemed to be worse at implementing the idea, but he didn't disclose that he was working on the same thing.

4. The goal of a VC meeting would be trying to understand the unique proposition of your product (as well as team and market size).