Hunter Somerville
Partner, StepStone Group. On 2 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investor@somervil2005 ↗LinkedIn ↗stepstonegroup.com ↗
Hunter Somerville is a Partner at StepStone Group, specializing in venture capital, growth equity, and venture secondaries. Previously a General Partner at Greenspring Associates, he serves on LP advisory boards for firms including Foundry Group, Scale Venture Partners, and Felix Capital.
2shows
3appearances
101statements
21resolved
13supported
4contradicted
62%fully supported
Everything Hunter Somerville said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
StepStone believes India lacks 20 to 30 VC managers worth backing
“We're not gonna suddenly have 20 to 30 managers in India. That, that's not our desire, and I don't think there's 20 to 30 that we would view as worth doing at this point in time.”
Somerville: VC managers with most aggressive TVPI valuations need capital most
“And the ones that are the most aggressive in TVPI carrying value Are the ones that need the capital the most versus the ones that have been more conservative.”
Somerville: Generational Friction Will Cause Increased Infighting in VC Partnerships
“I think what you're gonna end up having happen is increased infighting in a lot of groups, because you have older GPs that have done very well that are staying on longer than they ever expected just because they're going to be needed to get funds raised in the…”
GP management quality no longer matters much in late-stage fund secondaries
“That is entirely driven by the assets particularly because at that point in time, the GP Can't screw it up either way. You know, there's not really much left to decide on. Reserves have been mostly deployed. It, the GP itself doesn't matter as much.”
Somerville: Mark down VCs with under two years of runway, not long-runway growers
“I would look at the companies that are shorter on runway that are going to need to raise within the next 18 to 24 months, and if those companies have hit a growth phase and a price that's too high, then I would take a discretionary markdown on it. If instead i…”
Somerville: Mainstream generalist growth funds are absent from crypto
“I mean, specific to the crypto side, the only potentially interesting thing there is no mainstream generalist money at the growth stage investing in that category. So the people that will be coming in and supporting those companies are the crypto native folks.”
Somerville: VC Managers Lacking DPI After Four Funds Face Organizational Risk
“I think if you wait around and have four or five funds and have returned no capital, you're actually introducing organizational risk from an LP standpoint.”
Somerville: Company secondary buyers lacking management relationships will get burned
“A lot of people that look at company secondaries Don't have a relationship with the management of these companies and don't get full information. So they're actually buying in a very imperfect way with not a lot of granularity on what actually the company is d…”
Somerville: VC Funds with 3x-4x TVPI Can Accept 50% Secondary Discounts
“Now, if a fund is at a three to a four X and you're asking them to take a 50% discount, they're still going back to their board with a two X return and the ability from an opportunity cost standpoint to then deploy it. Into what we all expect to be very good v…”
Somerville: No Tech IPOs Will Occur in the Next Two Years
“Company side, people, I think, think of a little bit differently philosophically, but at the same time, they know that there's not going to be an IPO in the next two years, and A lot of those constituents are smaller, they're high net worths, they're individua…”
Somerville: International and Middle East LPs Will Increasingly Fund Growth Venture
“I do. I think there will be a lot higher level of international participation and particularly in the growth funds just because on the growth side, you know, if you want to write a 50 to a hundred million dollar check, I mean, even in the early stage funds, if…”
Somerville: Emerging VC managers should avoid selling management company GP stakes
“I don't think they should take it unless that's the only option. And if it's that hard to fundraise, and they don't have, like, a natural group of family offices or high net worths to support them maybe they should wait and find a different way to generate a t…”
Somerville: VC Asset Valuation Methodology Is Permanently Changed
“I never thought valuation policy would change as much as it did have public comp reliance option pricing modeling inserted, broad scale discretionary markdowns. I just think how people will value these assets has probably been forever changed on a go forward b…”
Somerville: Rapid 2020-2021 VC Deployments Face Multi-Vintage Returns Crisis
“You're not going to provide any vintage or diversification, and those funds will probably end up being challenged if they were concentrated in, in parts of, like, 20, 21, and you didn't smooth it out enough, and if you manage to do two or three funds within a …”
Somerville: Structured equity downside protections often evaporate prior to exit
“Structure doesn't necessarily stay when a company exits. It gets negotiated out by management or the rest of the board, and so you can think that you've protected yourself with structure, and it ends up absolutely evaporating.”
Somerville: Micro VC funds will face harder fundraising as LP market saturates
“It will increasingly become harder to raise subsequent iterations or to scale, and I think you've started to see that with even some groups that have a track record now and have done a pretty decent job struggling to find new LPs on the institutional side to c…”
Somerville: Fund managers selling into secondaries is a negative signal for LPs
“For us as a direct secondary buyer, just for our model, we're more interested in buying typically from employees or departed employees just because for us as an investor in funds, if your fund manager is selling out into a secondary, it's not a great sign for …”
Somerville: Micro VCs should sell majority stakes into mega growth rounds
“Yeah, I mean, I think definitely on the micro side, it's something that people should be actively doing, and I would even consider selling majority positions, not full positions, into these mega growth rounds. I think it makes sense as a seed investor, you're …”
Somerville: Venture capital firms retain non-performing partners for too long
“I think people keep non-performing partners for too long, and there's not as much of a focus on transitioning those folks out or giving them the ability to fix a portfolio rather than continue to deploy at the same clip.”
Evaluating VC managers solely on DPI causes LPs to miss emerging talent
“If you're waiting around and just judging what people have done on a realized basis or in DPI, you're not going to have a good sense for the momentum in those managers, and you'll probably wait too long to eventually pick
A really interesting up and coming gro…”
Multi-stage platform VC brands always maintain an advantage at Series A
“Particularly like when you look at Series A, those groups always maintain an advantage.”
Indian startups can IPO at $100M revenue compared to $200M in US
“From our interpretation, it feels like companies are able to go out at a smaller top line scale. Than you would see in international markets where it's viable maybe in the hundred to one hundred fifty million top line range instead of what seems to be more lik…”
Southeast Asia lags on DPI realizations but will eventually improve
“Southeast Asia is still earlier on its journey and has not actually, in my opinion, shown as much from a realization DPI standpoint. I think that will improve.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Hunter's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | Partner, StepStone Group | 2 | 61 | 61% 11/18 | full record on 20VC → |
 NEON SHOWLEDGER | Partner, StepStone Group | 1 | 40 | 67% 2/3 | full record on the Neon Show → |