It is good to look at the data, but Fred Wilson's assertion is not necessarily wrong. Data notwithstanding.
There are a large number of reasons why getting too much money is bad for a company. See the "Don't raise too much" section of http://www.paulgraham.com/fr.html for some of it. If you want a much more thorough analysis (albeit in a different context), the negative dynamics of too much money are studied in detail in The Innovator's Solution.
That said, investors like Fred Wilson are aware of this risk. Therefore they will attempt to avoid investing too much in companies that can't handle it. Thus the fact that a company received more money means that, in the judgement of investors, it was a company that could absorb more money. If the investors do their job well, you would therefore expect to see little to no correlation between the amount invested in a startup and the subsequent success of said startup.
The right analysis is impossible to do. But it is to compare what a competent investor (eg Fred Wilson) thought a company could handle, compared to what it got, and see if there are correlations there.
There are a large number of reasons why getting too much money is bad for a company. See the "Don't raise too much" section of http://www.paulgraham.com/fr.html for some of it. If you want a much more thorough analysis (albeit in a different context), the negative dynamics of too much money are studied in detail in The Innovator's Solution.
That said, investors like Fred Wilson are aware of this risk. Therefore they will attempt to avoid investing too much in companies that can't handle it. Thus the fact that a company received more money means that, in the judgement of investors, it was a company that could absorb more money. If the investors do their job well, you would therefore expect to see little to no correlation between the amount invested in a startup and the subsequent success of said startup.
The right analysis is impossible to do. But it is to compare what a competent investor (eg Fred Wilson) thought a company could handle, compared to what it got, and see if there are correlations there.