Prediction Open AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Byers: 2021 venture capital vintage will be historically poor

Chad Byers · "I Partner with People" - Chad Byers talks about Venture, Fitness, and Being a Chad. · Mar 19, 2025 · at 12:47

Chad Byers, general partner at Susa Ventures, discusses previous market cycles and the fallout from the 2021 tech investing frenzy.

0:00 / 0:02exact quote · 2.3s

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“Like that vintage is going to be historically shitty.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

The 2021 venture capital fund vintage will deliver historically poor returns.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim asserts that the 2021 venture capital fund vintage will deliver historically poor returns, which fundamentally requires evaluating mature fund performance over a standard 10-year fund lifecycle (ending around late 2031). As of September 2026, the 2021 vintage is only approximately 5 years into its lifecycle. Although interim benchmark data from PitchBook, Carta, and Cambridge Associates as of mid-2026 show the 2021 vintage experiencing record-low early distributions (DPI) and lagging interim TVPI/IRR metrics compared to adjacent historical cohorts, final mature fund performance cannot be definitively determined until the 10-year vintage lifecycle concludes and full benchmark metrics are compiled.

As of August 2026, PitchBook reported that at the 5-year midpoint, 2021-vintage U.S. VC funds exhibited the lowest DPI of any vintage since at least 1997.
Carta benchmark data through Q1 2026 showed the 2021 vintage median TVPI hovering around ~1.02x–1.1x with 75th percentile net IRR remaining below 15.5%.
The 2021 fund vintage has only reached the halfway mark of its standard 10-year lifecycle as of September 2026, meaning mature 10-year pooled net IRR and TVPI cannot be evaluated until after the stated horizon of December 31, 2031.

Checked against

[1] pitchbook.com [2] carta.com [3] saastr.com [4] carta.com [5] carta.com [6] carta.com [7] cambridgeassociates.com [8] valueaddvc.com

Cambridge Associates US venture capital 2021 vintage returns IRR 2021 venture capital vintage performance IRR TVPI 2024 2025 2026 PitchBook US VC vintage performance 2021 fund vintage IRR TVPI 2021 VC vintage returns worst historical performance PitchBook Cambridge Associates

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

⏳ prediction date: 2031-12-31; checked again automatically on the next resolution wave

Mentioned

2021 vintage Chad Byers

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