Steve Lisson | Stephen Lisson | StephenNLisson | Stephen N. Lisson | Austin Texas | Austin TX

January 16, 2014 Leave a comment

2014

How to rate a venture capital firm – Steve Lisson | Stephen Lisson | StephenNLisson | Stephen N. Lisson | Austin Texas | Austin TX Steve Lisson, Stephen Lisson, StephenNLisson, Stephen N. Lisson, Austin Texas, Austin TX, Steve Lisson Austin TX, Stephen Lisson Austin Texas

Steve Lisson | Stephen Lisson | StephenNLisson | Stephen N. Lisson | Austin Texas | Austin TX Steve Lisson, Stephen Lisson, StephenNLisson, Stephen N. Lisson, Austin Texas, Austin TX, Steve Lisson Austin TX, Stephen Lisson Austin Texas
How to rate a venture capital firm
By Lawrence Aragon
April 16, 2001
Red Herring explains how it came up with its list of top venture capital firms
for the 2001 version of the Red Herring 100: Kleiner Perkins Caufield and
Byers, Accel Partners, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital Partners, and runner-
ups Oak Investment Partners, Mayfield, Greylock, Menlo Ventures, North
Bridge Venture Partners, and Benchmark Capital.
Venture capital is like baseball without the stats. There are great arguments
about who’s the best — and worst — VC around. But unlike baseball fans, those
who follow venture capital have scant data on which to base their opinions.
Until now.
As part of our annual Red Herring 100, we set out to determine the top ten VC
firms using the best metrics we could come up with. To our knowledge, this is
the first time anyone has come up with a list based on more than a single
metric, such as the internal rate of return (IRR).
Before we get into each of the ten factors we examined, allow us a brief
explanation as to why we didn’t include the most common metric: IRR. IRR is
a number determined by each VC firm, and although it’s bandied about
frequently, it can be easily tweaked to make a firm look like it’s doing better
than it actually is. It isn’t uncommon for a VC that isn’t performing very well to
inflate its IRR by counting its own “carry,” the money it makes from
investments, into its IRR.
The only real way to know how a VC firm is performing is to look at its
disbursements to its limited partners (LPs). This is the actual stock or money
that VCs get from a liquidity event — that is, a portfolio company’s IPO or its
sale to another company. The only problem is, VCs don’t want to share this
information.
Enter Steve Lisson, editor of InsiderVC.com, a venture capital research firm.
Mr. Lisson has been able to infiltrate the closemouthed community of LPs and
get its members to share disbursement figures. We asked Mr. Lisson to come
up with a list of the best ten VCs in the country, based on disbursements to LPs
and how consistently they have returned the big bucks to LPs.
Here, then, are the top ten venture capital firms: Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers, Accel Partners, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital Partners, Oak
Investment Partners, Mayfield, Greylock, Menlo Ventures, North Bridge
Venture Partners, and Benchmark Capital. The top four firms (the first four
listed) made it into the Red Herring 100. Now, on to our criteria: underneath
the chart just below we review in depth the ten factors we rated the companies
on.
1. Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers 10 10 10 6 10 9 10 5 10 109.09
2.Accel Partners 9 9 8.58 10 9 9 5 10 108.77
3. Matrix Partners 9 10 10 9 5 10 10 10 4 6 8.36
4. Sequoia Capital Partners 6 10 9.5 8 10 7.5 10 5.5 2 4 7.14
(tied) Oak Investment
Partners 8 10 6.5 10 2 5 10 7 2 107.14
(tied) Mayfield 7 10 9.5 7 10 8 10 6 0 4 7.14
7. Greylock 6 10 10 9 4 9 10 7 6 0 7.00
8. Menlo Ventures 8 10 5.5 8 3 10 6.5 7.5 2 2 6.41
9. North Bridge Venture
Partners 7 3.5 10 7 6 9 8 9.5 0 2 6.27
10. Benchmark Capital 7 3 6.5 7 3 8 1 4 10 2 5.32
Average7.7 8.55 8.6 7.9 6.3 8.45 8.45 6.65 4.6 5 7.26
1 The disbursement category is weighted twice that of other categories. Data from Steve Lisson,
editor of InsiderVC.com.
2 Operating experience counts VP level and above.
Disbursements.
Mr. Lisson gave a score of 10 to just one VC firm: Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers. Benchmark Capital, which has had some monster hits in the past couple
of years, scored a 7, because it has only been around for six years.
Longevity.
In the venture business, age counts for a lot. It means a firm has been battle-
tested and has done well enough to get its LPs to continue investing. We took
each firm’s number of years in business and divided that figure in half to come
up with a score (with a maximum score of 10). Six firms earned a 10. Two firms
came up short: Benchmark and North Bridge Venture Partners, with scores of
3 and 3.5, respectively.
Pressure to invest.
A general partner is better off if there isn’t pressure to put a lot of money to
work. We divided the amount of a firm’s current fund size by its number of
general partners, then assigned a value to the resulting figure. After talking to
several VCs, we determined that $90 million per partner was reasonable to
assign a score of 10. We gave a 9 to anyone managing $110 million, an 8 to
those managing $130 million, and so on.
VC experience.
This should be self-explanatory as to why it’s important. We gave general
partners with 15 years or more of experience a score of 10. Those with 12 to 14
years received a 9, and so forth. Oak Investment Partners came out on top in
this category, with an average of 17 years for its partners. Even though Kleiner
has at least three partners with more than 20 years of experience, its score got
knocked down to a 7 because it recently added some technology executives to
its partnership.
Operating experience.
With so many portfolio companies in trouble these days, every VC firm needs
partners who’ve been in the real world to advise troubled companies. We gave
each firm a point for any general partner with operating experience, plus a
bonus point for any partner who qualified as a “star.” General partners who fell
into the star category include Kleiner’s Ray Lane, former president and chief
operating officer (some say the de facto CEO) of Oracle, and Mayfield’s Janice
Roberts, who ran Palm when it was a division of 3Com.
Board seats.
Six boards is the maximum number you can sit on and still actually contribute
valuable time and energy, we’re told by veteran VCs. Menlo Ventures and
Matrix Partners were the only firms whose partners sat on an average of six or
fewer boards, giving them perfect 10s. We gave firms whose partners held an
average of seven to eight board seats a score of 9, and so on. Oak fared the
worst: its six general partners sit on an average of 12 boards each.
IPOs/Sales.
This is one of those categories that VCs like to brag about, but it can often be
misleading. Two firms may be in the same IPO, but one may own 15 percent of
a company while another owns 1 percent. The only real way to know how well a
VC did in an IPO is through disbursement figures. Still, we felt we should give
VCs some credit for liquidity events. We gave a firm one point for every $1
billion in value, with a maximum of 10 points for $10 billion. IPO figures were
based on the close on the first day of trading. Sale prices were based on the
value on the day the deal closed. A lot of moonshot IPOs have fallen back to
earth, so this category is squishy at best.
Lack of portfolio problems.
Matrix was the only firm on our list that had no failed or troubled companies.
We gave each firm 1 point for every failed company and half a point for every
company that had laid off employees in the past year. We then subtracted that
total from 10. Benchmark fared the worst in this category with a score of 4.
Blame it on those Internet bets like Living.com, MVP.com, and Send.com.
RH 100 factor (2000 and 2001).
VCs deserve credit for portfolio companies that show great promise. Because
the staff of Red Herring spent weeks vetting all of the companies that made the
Red Herring 100 list, we used the private portion of the list (50 companies) in
2000 and 2001 as a basis for determining potential hits. For every portfolio
company on the Red Herring 100, we gave a firm 2 points, with a maximum of
10. Kleiner and Accel Partners were the only firms to receive 10s for both years.
Kleiner had the most companies on this year’s list: Zaplet, Epoch, Synaptics,
SmartPipes, Asera, and Bowstreet.
As much time as we spent thinking about how to create a top ten VC list, and
then double- and triple-checking the data, we’d be nave if we didn’t expect
some VCs to take issue with our numbers or our methodology. So, don’t feel
shy about expressing your opinion.
Write to laragon@redherring.com.
Note: In the “Top 10 VC Firms” on page 185 of issue 97, Menlo Ventures
should have been ranked No. 8 and North Bridge Ventures should have been
No. 9. In addition, we did not make it clear that three firms tied for 4th place:
Sequoia Capital Partners, Oak Investment Partners, and Mayfield. The data
is correct here.
SPONSORED LINKS
ABOUT US
TERMS OF SERVICE
ETHICS POLICY
HELP
Copyright 2003 RHC Media, Inc.
http://www.redherring.com
Steve Lisson | Stephen Lisson | StephenNLisson | Stephen N. Lisson | Austin Texas | Austin TX
Steve Lisson, Stephen Lisson, StephenNLisson, Stephen N. Lisson, Austin Texas, Austin TX, Steve Lisson Austin TX, Stephen Lisson Austin Texas

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas

January 16, 2014 Stephen Lisson, Stephen N. Lisson, Steve Lisson Leave a comment

2014

Steve Lisson, Stephen N. Lisson

VALLEY TALK
Behind the VC Music
FORTUNE
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By Mark Gimein Stephen Lisson is not a conventionally likable guy. On more
than one occasion, he’s implied that I’m the single stupidest
reporter he’s ever talked to. He has kept me on the phone for
hours at a time listening to the most arcane statistics, until I’ve
slammed down the phone in frustration. He calls people who
disagree with him “lickspittles.” He dismisses many of the
visitors to his Website as “parasites.”
And yet over the past few months I have repeatedly gone back to
Lisson and his new Website, InsiderVC.com, because Lisson has
the best data out there about venture capital, and often the most
interesting things to say about it.
Venture capitalists are the rock stars du jour of the financial
world, a species of money managers who are believed capable of
superhuman wisdom. Business magazines tend to assume that
the richer you are, the smarter you must be, and the Internet
boom has lavished untold riches on the venture capitalists who
invested early.
“Untold” is a key word here, because hardly anyone knows
exactly how great these riches are. In this way, venture-capital
funds are very different from, say, mutual funds. Venture
capitalists talk vaguely about “triple-digit returns,” but even
successful funds tend to keep their returns a closely guarded
secret. And even when they do reveal numbers, they can be hard
to understand.
This is where Austin, Texas, entrepreneur and venture-capital
gadfly Stephen Lisson comes in. Through years of research and,
apparently, a lot of cooperation from a network of sources
willing to send him copies of the reports that venture-capital
firms send out to their investors, Lisson has gathered an
immense database of information about venture-capital firms’
investments and profits.
Lisson doesn’t make all his data public–much of his information
is limited to subscribers, and he can be picky even about whom
he allows to subscribe. But what he’s already revealed in the
public sections (for example, see: Database Example) of
InsiderVC.com is fascinating. Some of his data shows exactly
what you might expect. Benchmark Capital Partners’ 1995 fund-the
fund that famously invested in eBay–has already returned to
its investors 38 times the money they put in. Investors who put
money into the fund that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,
Silicon Valley’s best-known venture-capital firm, raised in 1996,
have already made a similarly spectacular return of over 1,000%.
But you’ll also find that the 1997 fund raised by Hummer
Winblad, another venture-capital firm that has traditionally
received a lot of attention from the press, has so far returned
only 42% of its investors’ money. That might be a decent
showing in any other era, but in the middle of the biggest
technology boom or bubble in history, it’s not great, and not
nearly as good as some of Hummer Winblad’s peers. (Typically,
venture funds distribute cash or stocks as the companies in their
portfolio are sold or go public. In theory, that means they can
continue paying out money to investors for a very long time, but
in practice, almost all of their profits are made in the first six
years of the fund.)
Even more interesting are the data that Lisson has gathered on
how venture capitalists value their investments. Venture
capitalists measure their own performance by an “internal rate of
return”–an annualized rate of increase in the value of their
investments. Often that’ll be a number in the high double digits,
sometimes in the triple digits. Sounds pretty good when you
compare it with the typical mutual fund. But if you look at the
InsiderVC.com database, you’ll find that funds claiming
immense annual returns sometimes pay out a lot less money to
investors than you’d imagine.
As of March 2000, Benchmark claimed an annualized return of
an amazing 279% for Benchmark III, the fund that the firm
raised in 1998. But wait a second! Lisson’s data also show that
Benchmark III hadn’t actually distributed any cash or stock to its
investors. That 279% return was based on a guesstimate of the
value of the companies Benchmark has invested in–companies
that, since they hadn’t gone public, are notoriously hard to value.
One of those companies, Living.com, has already gone bankrupt,
reducing the value of Benchmark’s investment from an estimated
$74 million to zero. And it’s hard to believe that, with the Net
bubble bursting, Benchmark’s investment in eBags.com is really
worth the $20 million-plus that Benchmark valued it at in
March.
For individual investors who don’t have a prayer of putting their
money into funds that deal only with tech insiders, large
institutions, and foundations, analyzing exactly how much the
top funds make can certainly seem like an academic exercise. It
can all sound arcane, confusing, and dull, and if you are not an
investor in venture-capital funds, I don’t recommend it as a
hobby or a business. But it’s important that somebody do it.
First, because venture investment is the engine driving much of
Silicon Valley’s technological innovation. And, second, because
it’s important for somebody like Lisson to remind investors and
the business press that venture capitalists are not the gods of
finance they are often made out to be, but instead, very well-
trained money managers. Sometimes very smart money
managers, sometimes very lucky money managers, but
nonetheless, financiers who’ll often make a lot of money and
sometimes, like the rest of us, flub it.
HOME | COMPANY PROFILES | INVESTING | CAREERS | SMALL BUSINESS | TECHN
© Copyright 2003 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission
Privacy Policy Terms of Use Disclaimer Contact Fortune

NVCA Advocates More Confidentiality on Returns

Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts
Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts vexatious litigant vexatious litigants

Home
Behind the VC Music
Day of E-tonement
Facebook
Fallen VC Idols
FourSquare
How to rate a venture capital firm
InsiderVChomepage1
InsiderVChomepage2
Instagram
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers: It’s good to be king
NVCA Advocates More Confidentiality on Returns
Pinterest
Selected Buzz Descending in Chronological Order
Steve Lisson
Tumblr
Twitter
Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events
WALTHAM’S MATRIX LEADING VENTURE PACK ON BOTH COASTS
What’s a VC to Do?
Sitemap

NVCA Advocates More Confidentiality on Returns

The Private Equity Analyst WEEKLY Page 6 of 7 NOVEMBER 12, 2001
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
NVCA Advocates More Confidentiality on Returns By Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam
Could it be a coincidence that GPs are getting touchier on the
issue of confidentiality of fund performance data at a time when
private equity returns are plummeting?
The National Venture Capital Association recently distributed
a list of suggestions for GPs to reduce unwanted
disclosure of information included in reports to their LPs,
particularly public pension funds, presumably to spare GPs the
shock of seeing their fund returns posted on a Web site or in a
trade press article.
Many state, municipal and local pension funds have fair
disclosure regulations, which, in the interest of transparency,
may require that the information be made available to the
public. NVCA’s suggestions include entering into confidentiality
agreements with LPs and tailoring the data distributed to
minimize the “harmful effects of subsequent public disclosure.”
Advocates for keeping performance data confidential
argue that the private equity industry relies on imperfect
information about private companies, which can be too
sensitive to reveal to the public. Also, they say that in the
absence of any standardized method of reporting private equity
returns, performance data presented in the form of IRRs can be
inaccurate and misleading.
President Mark Hessen of the NVCA says his concern is
that individuals (reporters, for example, or retirees whose public
pension program is used to invest in private equity funds) may
not be well-versed in the intricacies of performance data and
thus will get a distorted view of overall fund returns by looking
at quarterly reported returns.
‘A quarterly perspective is not representative of the entire
fund,’ he says. “We need to educate the public before we can
throw this information out there.”
Still, some like Michael Smith, director of research at
Atlanta-based consulting firm Hewitt Investment Group, believe
that transparency is the only way for prospective
Sources of private equity fund performance data
Venture Economics, Newark, N.J.: A division of
Thomson Financial. Provides industry wide private
equity performance benchmarks. Reach the firm at 973-
622-3100.
Cambridge Associates, Boston: Provides private
equity performance benchmarks and consulting services.
Reach the firm at 617-457-7500.
InsiderVC.com. Austin, Texas: Provides performance
data on individual venture capital firms. Its Web
site is at http://www.insidervc.com.
investors to separate “the wheat from the chaff.
“This is a market that two years ago did not need new
quality institutional investors,” he says. “Clearly that is different
now-if (VCs) want to broaden their appeal, the way to do it is by
making it more transparent.”
NVCA’s suggestions come at a time when GPs are still
smarting from California Public Employees’ Retirement
System’s decision earlier this year to post fund performance
data on its website. Calpers posted the IRRs of the 163
partnerships it had invested in since 1990, and had downgraded
some firms as “not performing up to expectations.” (See Private
Equity Analyst Weekly, June 4, page 5.) A few months later,
Calpers yanked the returns data from its Web site, after receiving
complaints from its GPs.
So, how can prospective investors gain access to the
performance data of venture capital and private equity firms?
Some public pension funds do make their quarterly performance
reports available to the public as a matter of course. Others,
like Florida State Board of Administration, make information
available, if the public requests it. And then there are quarterly
benchmark numbers for the whole industry released by Venture
Economics and Cambridge Associates. (See table below.)
One source of fund performance data is the Web site
InsiderVC.com, whose founder, Stephen Lisson, has received
both brickbats and bouquets from venture capitalists for his
analysis of performance data and his provocative commentary.
His Web site provides performance data of hundreds of venture
capital and private equity funds including those managed by
New Enterprise Associates and Matrix Partners.
In an interview, Mr. Lisson declined to reveal his sources
of information. “The reason people share information with us is
that we are very discreet, and we are very careful about who
sees our information.” Indeed, Mr. Lisson carefully screens
applicants before allowing them to subscribe to the performance
data contained in his Web site.
Mr. Lisson stresses that his data is not intended for the general
public. “My data is for insiders to improve their own game. VCs get to
benchmark themselves against their peers-it’s a confidence level
thing,” Mr. Lisson says. Mr. Lisson acknowledges that the VC
community could benefit from a healthy dose of transparency and
humility. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he says. But he questions
the value of making public IRRs and interim valuations, which by
nature are based on subjective evaluations. “There should be less
focus on returns and interim valuations, and more focus on building
world class companies.”
Copyright 2001 Asset Alternatives, Wellesley, Mass.
Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts
Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts vexatious litigant vexatious litigants

Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events

Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events STEVE LISSON, STEPHEN N. LISSON, STEVE N. LISSON, STEVE, LISSON, INSIDER, VC, INSIDERVC, INSIDERVC.COM
Wednesday September 26 08:57 AM EDT
Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events
By MATT RICHTEL The New York Times Already suffering from the dot-com bust, venture capital investing is being further challenged in light of the recent terrorist attacks and growing signs of recession.
• Search NYTimes.com:

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 25 Venture capital investing, the high-risk financing of early-stage companies that has been markedly curtailed in the last year, is being further challenged in light of the recent terrorist attacks and growing signs of recession, those investors say. The venture capitalists assert that the slowing of the economy, coupled with an uncertainty about the public markets, is affecting all facets of their industry, including their ability to raise new funds, their decisions about which and how many companies to invest in, and their expectations about when their existing investments will become profitable.
Putting a fine point on the concern, the National Venture Capital Association issued a statement today saying the industry “is preparing for an extremely difficult economic environment” in the next 12 to 18 months.
At the heart of the issue is a question about how venture capitalists can expect to sell the investments they make. Typically they take their companies public, or sell them outright. But those so-called “exit strategies” are sharply limited, said Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group based in Arlington, Va., with 400 member firms.
“We were already in tough times,” Mr. Heesen said. “What Sept. 11 did was make the likelihood of the I.P.O. market opening in the next four quarters pretty unlikely. A lot of V.C.’s are saying it might not open until 2003,” using the abbreviation for venture capitalists.
The investors say that as a result, they must put more money into companies in which they are already invested, making sure to keep them afloat until an exit strategy emerges. The numbers on investments made in new companies bear that out: this year, venture capitalists will invest about $50 billion in start-up companies, Mr. Heesen said, compared with $105 billion last year.
Still, venture capitalists point out that this market appears to be so difficult because this year is being compared with the two years previous, which were anomalies, with exorbitant returns being driven by the dot-com boom, and the expansion of the public markets.
Steve Lisson, editor and publisher of InsiderVC.com, said recent events were reminiscent of the time around the gulf war, when the industry had its last downturn. At that time, the ability to attract capital to invest in start-ups “fell off dramatically,” but he said the industry bounced back within several years to have the “best period in its history.”
Email this story – View most popular | Printer-friendly format
ADVERTISEMENT
Click Here to Receive 50% Off Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper.
Archived Stories by Date:

Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events

STEVE LISSON, STEVE LISSON, AUSTIN, TX, STEPHEN N. LISSON, TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS, LISSON STEPHEN N., STEVE N. LISSON, STEVE, LISSON, INSIDER, VC, INSIDERVC, INSIDERVC.COM
Steve Lisson, STEVE LISSON, AUSTIN, TX, STEPHEN N. LISSON, TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS, LISSON STEPHEN N., STEVE N. LISSON, STEVE, LISSON, INSIDER, VC, INSIDERVC, INSIDERVC.COM
Sitemap

Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts
Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts vexatious litigant vexatious litigants VALLEY TALK
Behind the VC Music
FORTUNE
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
By Mark Gimein
Stephen Lisson is not a conventionally likable guy. On more
than one occasion, he’s implied that I’m the single stupidest
reporter he’s ever talked to. He has kept me on the phone for
hours at a time listening to the most arcane statistics, until I’ve
slammed down the phone in frustration. He calls people who
disagree with him “lickspittles.” He dismisses many of the
visitors to his Website as “parasites.”
And yet over the past few months I have repeatedly gone back to
Lisson and his new Website, InsiderVC.com, because Lisson has
the best data out there about venture capital, and often the most
interesting things to say about it.
Venture capitalists are the rock stars du jour of the financial
world, a species of money managers who are believed capable of
superhuman wisdom. Business magazines tend to assume that
the richer you are, the smarter you must be, and the Internet
boom has lavished untold riches on the venture capitalists who
invested early.
“Untold” is a key word here, because hardly anyone knows
exactly how great these riches are. In this way, venture-capital
funds are very different from, say, mutual funds. Venture
capitalists talk vaguely about “triple-digit returns,” but even
successful funds tend to keep their returns a closely guarded
secret. And even when they do reveal numbers, they can be hard
to understand.
This is where Austin, Texas, entrepreneur and venture-capital
gadfly Stephen Lisson comes in. Through years of research and,
apparently, a lot of cooperation from a network of sources
willing to send him copies of the reports that venture-capital
firms send out to their investors, Lisson has gathered an
immense database of information about venture-capital firms’
investments and profits.
Lisson doesn’t make all his data public–much of his information
is limited to subscribers, and he can be picky even about whom
he allows to subscribe. But what he’s already revealed in the
public sections (for example, see: Database Example) of
InsiderVC.com is fascinating. Some of his data shows exactly
what you might expect. Benchmark Capital Partners’ 1995 fund-the
fund that famously invested in eBay–has already returned to
its investors 38 times the money they put in. Investors who put
money into the fund that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,
Silicon Valley’s best-known venture-capital firm, raised in 1996,
have already made a similarly spectacular return of over 1,000%.
But you’ll also find that the 1997 fund raised by Hummer
Winblad, another venture-capital firm that has traditionally
received a lot of attention from the press, has so far returned
only 42% of its investors’ money. That might be a decent
showing in any other era, but in the middle of the biggest
technology boom or bubble in history, it’s not great, and not
nearly as good as some of Hummer Winblad’s peers. (Typically,
venture funds distribute cash or stocks as the companies in their
portfolio are sold or go public. In theory, that means they can
continue paying out money to investors for a very long time, but
in practice, almost all of their profits are made in the first six
years of the fund.)
Even more interesting are the data that Lisson has gathered on
how venture capitalists value their investments. Venture
capitalists measure their own performance by an “internal rate of
return”–an annualized rate of increase in the value of their
investments. Often that’ll be a number in the high double digits,
sometimes in the triple digits. Sounds pretty good when you
compare it with the typical mutual fund. But if you look at the
InsiderVC.com database, you’ll find that funds claiming
immense annual returns sometimes pay out a lot less money to
investors than you’d imagine.
As of March 2000, Benchmark claimed an annualized return of
an amazing 279% for Benchmark III, the fund that the firm
raised in 1998. But wait a second! Lisson’s data also show that
Benchmark III hadn’t actually distributed any cash or stock to its
investors. That 279% return was based on a guesstimate of the
value of the companies Benchmark has invested in–companies
that, since they hadn’t gone public, are notoriously hard to value.
One of those companies, Living.com, has already gone bankrupt,
reducing the value of Benchmark’s investment from an estimated
$74 million to zero. And it’s hard to believe that, with the Net
bubble bursting, Benchmark’s investment in eBags.com is really
worth the $20 million-plus that Benchmark valued it at in
March.
For individual investors who don’t have a prayer of putting their
money into funds that deal only with tech insiders, large
institutions, and foundations, analyzing exactly how much the
top funds make can certainly seem like an academic exercise. It
can all sound arcane, confusing, and dull, and if you are not an
investor in venture-capital funds, I don’t recommend it as a
hobby or a business. But it’s important that somebody do it.
First, because venture investment is the engine driving much of
Silicon Valley’s technological innovation. And, second, because
it’s important for somebody like Lisson to remind investors and
the business press that venture capitalists are not the gods of
finance they are often made out to be, but instead, very well-
trained money managers. Sometimes very smart money
managers, sometimes very lucky money managers, but
nonetheless, financiers who’ll often make a lot of money and
sometimes, like the rest of us, flub it.
HOME | COMPANY PROFILES | INVESTING | CAREERS | SMALL BUSINESS | TECHN
© Copyright 2013 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission
Privacy Policy Terms of Use Disclaimer Contact Fortune

Sitemap

Collapse all

Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events

Steve Lisson, STEVE LISSON, AUSTIN, TX, STEPHEN N. LISSON, TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS, LISSON STEPHEN N., STEVE N. LISSON, STEVE, LISSON, INSIDER, VC, INSIDERVC, INSIDERVC.COM

STEVE LISSON, STEVE LISSON, AUSTIN, TX, STEPHEN N. LISSON, TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS

Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas

Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen Lisson Austin Texas

Selected Buzz Descending in Chronological Order

Selected Buzz Descending in Chronological Order

“You are getting more exposure than you ever expected and I think you are using it wisely.

Keep it up!” - from the founder & managing partner of a major East Coast venture capital firm

“You’re not overexposed, just listened to.” – from a West Coast counterpart

Waltham’s Matrix leading venture pack on both coasts: Firm credits discipline, insistence on lead role for stunning ’90s returns There are dozens of other fine firms with great returns. But only one can be the best. People who run endowments and foundations corroborate Matrix’s reputation. The recipe has paid off handsomely for entrepreneurs, too.

Death Valley The Bay Area is coming to terms with the end of an era.

The Un-Wild Bunch The hottest VC firm you’ve never heard of.

Behind the VC Music Venture capitalists are the rock stars du jour of the financial world, but a new Website reveals that some funds pay out a lot less money to investors than you’d imagine. For individual investors who don’t have a prayer of putting their money into funds that deal only with tech insiders, large institutions, and foundations, analyzing exactly how much the top funds make can certainly seem like an academic exercise. But it’s important that somebody do it.

The inside scoop on VCs For those who measure their worth by their investments and their stock holdings – pretty much all of Silicon Valley – there’s a new Web site that looks to be rivaling F**kedcompany.com for sly, subversive attention.

Day of E-tonement Ouch. Investors feel the pain. This market is a bear, and it could get meaner. Much was made earlier this year of those triple-digit internal rates of return.

The House of Pain (Barron’s Cover Story) Ever since the IPO rocketship crashed to earth, the pros have been asking themselves when, or whether, the new-issue game will revive. If bad ventures henceforth go unfunded, all the agony may have been worthwhile.

Rumors of Benchmark’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated For weeks, rumors have been circulating in the VC community that Benchmark Capital’s third fund, Benchmark III, was in trouble, hit hard by losses in e-commerce companies like 1-800-Flowers.com. The rumors reflect a misunderstanding of how venture funds operate.

From Y2K to dot-com bombs: The year that was Best-performing Sand Hill Road VC fund award; Worst-performing Sand Hill Road VC fund award.

Early-stage deals take center stage as exit strategies blur: The advent of good times for early-stage VCs and entrepreneurs as well (Corrected) The quality of many early-stage deals and the size of the financings may actually increase. With valuations down, the VC party is only just beginning. It’s just that many VCs don’t want to admit it.

Bonehead Safari Who’s the Dumbest VC? One reporter’s quest to lavish this ignominious award. I doubted her investors were laughing.

V.C. Battle: East vs. West Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Matrix Partners are considered the cream of the crop among venture capital firms, the kind of VCs that limited partners are fortunate to be able to invest their money with. So compliments paid, we set out to find out which was better.

CalPERS tightens its grip on VC Observers were surprised by the move, questioning why a venture firm would want to let one of its limited partners play a more significant role, or to share its profits with yet another partner.

The thrill of defeat TA Associates’ Kevin Landry is in the venture business because it’s fun, he says. And to make money for the firm’s investors and partners. Few complaints there.

For VCs the show is also over (English text version) When it’s about return on investment VCs tend to be vague and not afraid of ‘window dressing’, making things look better then they are.

KKR’s 2.8 Percent Returns Hinder Raising New Fund (Update3) Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is taking a beating in the leveraged buyout business it all but created and dominated the past 15 years.

High tech’s bloom has faded for Paul Allen It is unlikely that all of Vulcan’s Internet companies will be able to raise more money in the future. That’s not bad for Vulcan.

Rivals? Not when they see a good deal It’s common lore in Boston venture circles: Where Matrix goes, North Bridge isn’t far behind.

Balance of Power Shifts To VCs, LPs However, just as the most sought-after start-ups still command some power, top venture firms will still set the agenda. The result of the new venture environment will be a widening divide between the top VCs and start-ups and everyone else, conditions that could hasten a shakeout in the industry.

Venture Firms Seek Protection From Price Declines on New Stakes Liquidity preferences have been around for 20 years and typically gain wider use in periods of declining returns.

COVER STORY: Venture Capital – Climbing the Capital Hill Falling valuations are a double-edged sword for venture capitalists. Venture firms can only maintain overvalued companies on their books for so long. At some point, you either have to toss more cash at the money-losing enterprise or take the loss. For the right VCs, however, all the gloom and doom may actually turn out to be a blessing.

Benchmark Rumors Persist Now the rumor is that the firm’s latest fund, Benchmark IV, is the one that’s in trouble. No doubt Benchmark is holding its share of losing investments from the Internet craze. But so are a lot of other name firms.

Financial investors? Us? InsiderVC.com pierces the VC industry’s verbal fog Managing partners gossip endlessly about the industry.

As Start-Ups Fail, Venture Investors Back Out in Droves Financing: The stampede to put money into tech has reversed direction, with some partners selling out at a loss.

Funds nationwide are seeing red Investors in Matrix Partners, a Waltham venture group that is arguably outperforming everybody else in the business, aren’t complaining about the downturn. Yes, they may have gotten an astounding 19 times their money back on Fund IV launched in 1995. But they’ve also already reaped 12 times their original capital in the 1998 Fund V.

Idealab’s Identity Crisis With only 40 percent of funds invested, Fund II could be a hit or a bust, depending on how good its future investments are. This explains in part why Clearstone wants distance from Idealab.

How to rate a venture capital firm Venture capital is like baseball without the stats. There are great arguments about who’s the best — and worst — VC around. But unlike baseball fans, those who follow venture capital have scant data on which to base their opinions. Until now.
As part of our annual Red Herring 100, we set out to determine the top ten VC firms using the best metrics we could come up with. To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone has come up with a list based on more than a single metric, such as the internal rate of return (IRR).
Before we get into each of the ten factors we examined, allow us a brief explanation as to why we didn’t include the most common metric: IRR. IRR is a number determined by each VC firm, and although it’s bandied about frequently, it can be easily tweaked to make a firm look like it’s doing better than it actually is. It isn’t uncommon for a VC that isn’t performing very well to inflate its IRR by counting its own “carry,” the money it makes from investments, into its IRR.
The only real way to know how a VC firm is performing is to look at its disbursements to its limited partners (LPs). This is the actual stock or money that VCs get from a liquidity event — that is, a portfolio company’s IPO or its sale to another company. The only problem is, VCs don’t want to share this information.

Truth in Numbers

Deciding which VC firms are great requires determining which measurements really matter. Among our criteria, disbursements to investors may be the truest indicator of a firm’s success.

U.S. Venture Returns Slipped In The Fourth Quarter The news wasn’t all bad. Some top-performing funds that had “negative returns” not just in the fourth quarter, but for the entire year, actually distributed quite heavily to limited partners. Much of the appreciation in such funds had already been factored into the IRRs.

Good news outweighs bad for Battery Gone was the euphoria of last year, when the Wellesley firm announced it was raising a billion-dollar fund. This year the big money was expressed in paper losses.

Fallen Idols – High-profile and respected VCs weren’t able to resist the Internet bubble. Now many are paying the price with troubled funds. Venture capital firms information about their funds’ performance, especially the current valuation of their investments, point to a fund in trouble. While any fund raised during the last few years is enduring tough times now, not every one is in the same boat.

Redpoint struggling to crank out results – Despite the VC firm’s hyped reputation, first fund could be running into trouble Redpoint’s partners are also still managing their previous funds at IVP and Brentwood, several of which were started in 1997 or later. And though these are what made Redpoint’s reputation, some of them are turning out less stellar than originally thought.

Insight Capital raises $740M software fund Later stage investing can be far less risky but also far less lucrative than other types of strategies.

Elite VC giants still investing, if it’s a home-run promise Since the crash, 15 top-tier firms have raised funds of a billion dollars or more. Many — including Worldview Technology Partners, Greylock, Austin Ventures and Oak Investment Partners — closed their new funds this year, well after most of the market damage. The amount of funds raised since the crash goes against the “drought” thesis.

Matrix Partners raises $1B fund

Venture capitalists lure entrepreneurs on board

How `Internet Bubble’ looks at the stock market now Sequoia Capital

VCs left holding worthless IPO shares

Venture firm plots safe course Morgenthaler Venture Partners

Summit Partners crosses the pond

COVER STORY: Venture Capital – Back to Basics Firms that engage in stage creep are asking for trouble.

VCs struggle to stay fit enough to survive Annex funds are not new.

Rates of return down for Hub VC firms The reliability of internal rate of return data is questionable. Moreover, it doesn’t say how much cash and stock a venture capital firm has distributed to its investors. That is the real number that should be watched.

What’s a VC to do? Venture capitalists had better keep investing.

Matrix bets on wireless: In a weak economy, Managing Partner Paul Ferri’s winning streak is on the line

Boom Town: The Next Tech Season Resumes As Sector Returns From Hiatus Like the last downturn, some of the same VCs now repeat their same biggest mistakes from a decade ago.

After dot-bombing, SBVC rebuilds Softbank Venture Capital

Venture Capital Financing Is Further Sapped by Events . . . recent events were reminiscent of the time around the Gulf War, when the industry had its last downturn. At that time, the ability to attract capital to invest in start-ups “fell off dramatically” but, he said, the industry bounced back within several years to enjoy the “best period in its history”.

NVCA Advocates More Confidentiality on Returns (Corrected): . . . acknowledges that the VC community could benefit from a healthy dose of transparency and humility. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” he says. But he questions the value of making public IRRs and interim valuations, which by nature are based on subjective evaluations. “There should be less focus on returns and interim valuations, and more focus on building world class companies.”

VC Like Me: Local Firms May Feel the World Is Against Them, as Investments, and Returns, Dry Up. But Some Venture Capitalists Say Now’s the Perfect Time to Make Money. The bigger risk is not that VCs will take on new projects in less lucrative sectors. It’s that they won’t abandon the bad investments they might still be carrying.

Apply Archives Documents Enter Home Login Parasites Sample Search Trophies

About Account Chat Contact Copyright Databases Disclaimer Extranet LinkToUs MessageBoards

NeedYourPasword? Newsletters Payments Privacy Related Resources Services Status Subscribe

Steve Lisson Austin TX Stephen N. Lisson Austin Texas litigation lawsuit lawsuits suit suits party parties attorney attorneys lawyer lawyers pro se judge judges court courts vexatious litigant vexatious litigants

Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor | STEVE LISSON.com: Steve Lisson | Austin, TX | SEP. - OCT. 2023

Blog Archive

Monday

Stephan Lisson

Steve Lisson | Austin TX | Stephen N. Lisson | Austin Texas | Steve ...

Steve Lisson, STEVE LISSON, AUSTIN, TX, STEPHEN N. LISSON ...