U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield Closes at All-Time Low

It means people are buying treasury notes instead of using that capital somewhere else. And that means they are afraid that investing it any other way will likely result in it being lost (fear driven). That can indicate a couple of things, one that there is so much money out there that these people don't care what return it generates, as long as its available 10 years from now. Or it can indicates how little people think of the current entrepreneur ecosystem such that there is nothing they are willing to bet on that would earn them more than the few dollars per year they would get from treasury bills.

Either way that represents a remarkable amount of capital "sitting on the sidelines" with nothing better to do. So what that implies for this audience, is that if you can figure out a way to generate even a slightly better return than treasury notes, and you can do it with modest risk. You will have access to all the capital you need and more. But it is also important to realize that this capital is no longer believing that a startup with an "exit" of any type has that sort of appeal. You need to come up with a startup that pays dividends or something on preferred shares. Basically if you figure out how to pay 3% annual dividends on your preferred shares, combined with a way to exchange shares in a slightly more liquid way than heavy weight funding rounds, you will be able to raise millions.

It seems far more likely that yields are plunging because 1) Brexit is threatening to tank itself, the EU and their trading partners 2) US treasuries are unlikely to be affected by this ("flight to quality") 3) institutional investors are willing to lock in a 10 year rate now by buying treasuries because rates are unlikely to go higher until #1 is resolved, and might even go lower instead