statistics - The 411 On Startups (tm)

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Venture Capital Returns

Jul

2015

One of the first things I did when I joined the venture asset class as a lowly institutional LP analyst in 2001 was to build the VC fund cashflow model. Just about every analyst who looks at fund investing has built one. You incorporate expected company returns, mortality rates, and fee structures to try to ...

A Simulation of Angel Investing, Part 2

May

2012

This is a follow-up to my post A simulation of angel investing. Several readers commented on Hacker News that my first stab at a simulation was misleading because it showed negative average returns for low deal sizes, when in fact expected returns should be not only positive but constant regardless of deal size. They are ...

The Venture Capital Math Problem

Apr

2009

This is a post by Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures. It goes through some statistics on Venture investing and ROI to imply the VC returns model is broken. More interesting are the comments it inspired; those comments have some really good data, freely given.

Venture Capital Exit Times and Return on Investment (ROI)

Dec

2008

Two previous posts: Venture Capital Firms are Too Big and Venture Capital Funds – How the Math Works, described how venture capital investors will want to invest too much and exit only for very high returns.Why are those bad things for entrepreneurs and angel investors? Well, it turns out those can be extremely bad. These ...

Performance Persistence in Entrepreneurship — Venture Success Statistics — HBS Working Knowledge

Dec

2008

All else equal, a venture-capital-backed entrepreneur who starts a company that goes public has a 30 percent chance of succeeding in his or her next venture. First-time entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have only an 18 percent chance of succeeding, and entrepreneurs who previously failed have a 20 percent chance of succeeding. But why do ...

The Portfolio Effect: Battery’s Tom Crotty on Why VCs Should Back at Least 25 Companies in Every Fund

Oct

2008

If you build a portfolio of less than 20 deals, and especially if you are an early-stage investor where the industry mortality rate is somewhere in the 50% range and maybe higher, you better be damn lucky on the winners and get more than one with strategic ‘exit’ premiums of 7x or more,’ he said. ...

National Venture Capital Association

Sep

2008

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) is the premier trade association that represents the U.S. venture capital industry. The site contains considerable data on the performance of the VC industry and its investments. NVCA is a member-based organization, consisting of venture capital firms that manage pools of risk equity capital dedicated to be invested in ...

PricewaterhouseCoopers: Global: Insights & Solutions: MoneyTree — Survey Report

Sep

2008

The MoneyTree Report is a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the United States. As a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based upon data from Thomson Financial, it is the only industry-endorsed research of its kind. The MoneyTree Report is the definitive source of information on emerging companies that ...

How Angel Investors Get Their Wings

Aug

2008

Backing entrepreneurs with good ideas can be a moneymaker for these daring investors who go where venture capitalists fear to tread.

Angel Capital Association Summit – Angels invest $26B in 2006

Aug

2008

The Angel Capital Association is holding its annual meeting in Chicago this week with over 330 angel investors from around the country (USA) representing more than 250 angel groups. Angel investing is big. In fact, angels have invested more dollars in more startups than VCs over the past 4 years. Angels invest just like VCs ...