The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 16 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 4 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Clark: 45 Venture Investments Have Returned $1B+ to a Single Fund
“So we had a look at our data and we found 45 investments that have returned a billion dollars to the single fund that invested and were also fund returners.”
PitchBook data: Only 2.6% of VC funds reach 5x DPI
“More than 50% hadn't returned one X capital. And so these are funds that are more than, that are 10 years old now, at least 10 years old now, hadn't returned one X capital. There was just 6.6% that had generated three X net DPI. And just 2.6% that had generate…”
Clark: Tech venture exit sizes will increase over next 10-15 years
“Ultimately the markets that they're playing in, and the share of the economic pie that technology is going to capture, in our view, is only going to increase. And so that gives us confidence that whatever the multiples are at the time of exit, the directionall…”
Clark: M&A regulatory chill will concentrate VC returns in fewer companies
“I think the impact that will have is that the concentration of returns in venture is going to be even smaller as they're going to be fewer companies that ultimately account for that, that performance.”
Clark: A Venture Manager's First Hit Is Random, But Repeatable
“So, again, going back to some of the academic data that's out there, it does suggest that that first success is actually random, but once you've had that first success, There's a high likely or higher likelihood that you can then leverage it and start that vir…”
VenCap's early, growth, and non-US funds yield nearly identical aggregate TVPI
“We looked at what's the performance of the early stage US funds from our core managers from 2005 onwards. What's the performance of the growth funds from our core managers from 2005 onwards? What's the performance of the non-US funds from 2005 onwards from our…”
Clark: Newer VC managers maintain last-round marks while established managers write down
“From newer managers, one of the things we look at are where are they holding their marks, and generally we've seen the new managers holding last round value marks, and not writing anything down, where it's the more established managers that are perhaps earlier…”
Clark: Early-stage loss ratios will return to 60%, causing widespread startup failures
“My sense is that it's going to go back to the average. It's going to go back to that sort of 60%. So I think there's a lot of pain still to be had. So that's not just companies who are going to get see their values reduced. I think there's a lot that ultimatel…”
David Clark: Late-Stage VC Returns Will Decline as Valuations Become Efficient
“If you're talking about, you know, the people that are raising multiple billions of dollars to do you know, to do the crossover deals, the late stage private rounds, Then I think that is more of a capital allocation exercise than it is a kind of craft business…”
Clark: 30 companies yearly drive over half of global VC exit value
“Venture is a power law industry, and it's one percent of the exits that ultimately generate the bulk of the returns created by the entire industry globally. So we're looking at around 30 companies a year that generate more than half of the total exit value for…”
Clark: LPs will wait 18-24 months for liquidity after IPOs resume
“So even if we start to see IPOs in the second half of this year, it's going to be six months before those shares become freely tradable and again, it will probably be another 12 to 18 months before those positions ultimately get fully distributed.”
VenCap targets three-year deployment cycles across all its funds
“Time diversification in a fund is so important. And so we look to invest all of our funds across a three year period.”
VenCap targets a 50-50 capital allocation between early and growth funds
“We want to be sort of roughly fifty-fifty between early and growth. It's a challenge to manage that if we end up being sort of, 45, 55, I think we're comfortable with that. We don't want to be 30, 70.”
Clark: Historically, 60% of early-stage venture investments return under 1x capital
“Historically for an early stage fund that's been 60% of companies don't return one X cost.”
Clark: Big VC IR departments make direct partner access harder
“It's getting harder, you know, particularly where, you know, you mentioned firms that have, you know, big IR departments and it's harder to have that interaction with individual partners. You've got to work at it more.”
VenCap’s worst-performing fund was a 1999 vintage deployed in 15 months
“One of the mistakes we made in the late nineties was deploying our funds too quickly in, I think we had one fund that was fully invested in 15 months. And it was the worst fund we had. So it was in, you know, the 1999 vintage fund.”