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Mercer's Sebusch: Short 2-to-5-year carry vesting destroys venture fund alignment

Eric Seabush · Raelan Lambert, John Jackson, and Erik Sebusch – Inside Mercer Consulting (EP.345) · Oct 23, 2023 · at 49:08

Erik Sebusch, venture capital research leader at Mercer, critiques recent GP vesting terms across 10-year venture fund vehicles.

0:00 / 0:35exact quote · 35.2s
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“I've seen An explosion of short vesting schedules of two to four to five years, and it's just not great alignment. I don't want a GP to be able to leave after two years, get a hundred percent of their carry, sit on the beach, and now the team or the LP base have to dilute the carry to bring in another partner, and then somebody reaps those benefits. I think that is proliferated. I don't know why some of the law firms have allowed this, I think it's bad for the GP as well as the LP, and I've seen some of the best funds fall apart because of that.”

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More from Eric Seabush

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sebusch predicts many late-stage venture unicorns will become 'zombie corns'
“In the late area, there's a lot of unicorns that are going to be zombie corns, right? And that's part of our job of trying to ascertain and understand what those portfolio looks like.”
Eric Seabush Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 38:17 Raelan Lambert, John Jackson, and Erik Sebusch – Inside Mercer Consulting (EP.345)
Disclosure
Sebusch: Mercer is currently adopting a barbell venture strategy
“At the moment, we're looking at more of a Barbell strategy, that very early stage and true growth, which I believe is the growth that is using to fuel extra sales. Technology risk is out. The mid-stage, we're at a little bit of a risk area right now because we…”
Eric Seabush Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 37:40 Raelan Lambert, John Jackson, and Erik Sebusch – Inside Mercer Consulting (EP.345)
Disclosure
Sebusch: Mercer favors smaller fund managers across all venture stages
“One element we do like is we do like to skew towards the smaller managers of each sector or asset class. Smaller growth equity managers, smaller early stage managers, smaller mid-stage, because we want to begin a relationship that we can grow over time with th…”
Eric Seabush Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 39:38 Raelan Lambert, John Jackson, and Erik Sebusch – Inside Mercer Consulting (EP.345)
Disclosure
Mercer Portfolios Feature 25–35 PE Managers With 10%–50% in Venture
“We would have a portfolio of probably 25 to 35 private equity managers, and your venture portfolio could be anywhere between 10% of that to 50%, depending upon the client.”
Eric Seabush Oct 23, 2023 ▶ 42:53 Raelan Lambert, John Jackson, and Erik Sebusch – Inside Mercer Consulting (EP.345)
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