What kind of investor focuses on valuation and ignores whether a company will be successful?
You said "there are a segment of investors who use valuation to drive their decisions, even if its irrational to do so".
It is not irrational to use valuation to drive decisions, though it is obviously stupid to have that be the only factor. It is however, a major one.
Of course if success is highly probably, one should not be deterred by valuation, and in fact valuation should be higher. These days, many companies are not risk discounted enough, making many investments a bad deal for investors. Companies raise at $10M valuations and go out of business 6 months later. This is not healthy.
You said "there are a segment of investors who use valuation to drive their decisions, even if its irrational to do so".
It is not irrational to use valuation to drive decisions, though it is obviously stupid to have that be the only factor. It is however, a major one.
Of course if success is highly probably, one should not be deterred by valuation, and in fact valuation should be higher. These days, many companies are not risk discounted enough, making many investments a bad deal for investors. Companies raise at $10M valuations and go out of business 6 months later. This is not healthy.