The next biggest challenge to the Venture Capital Industry today is returns…
According to the WSJ, “the softening stance follows the venture capital industry’s decade of poor returns. The average return for venture capital funds fell to 14% for the 10 years ended June 30, down from 34% for the 10 years ended June 30, 2008, largely because the venture returns generated in the first half of 1999 dropped out of the calculation, according to research firm Cambridge Associates LLC.” (1)
This is supported in a 2006 Venture Capital Study where it was shown that a fund with the normal distribution of success and failures but with one IPO could generate top venture quartile Net Internal Rate of Return for its Limited Partners. However, given that same success/failure distribution, but no IPOs (i.e., our recent past and today’s market conditions), but only M&A exits, that same fund might generate only a high single-digit Net Internal Rate of Return for its Limited Partners. More specifically, it was found in an average of 10 deals between 2002 and 2004 that IPOs generated 5-6x cash-on-cash, where “Good Acquisitions” (13 deals) would generate 3-4x and “Overall Acquisitions” (some 80 deals studied) would generate <1-1.6x cash-on-cash (2) – and with investment holding periods ranging from a few years to well over a decade. Further there is the risk of no return on many of the deals in a venture portfolio.
daVinci’s goal is to exceed the traditional top quartile returns of 25% Net Internal Rate of Return for its Limited Partners with far shorter holding periods and mitigated risk. We are targeting cash-on-cash returns of 3-6x on an original daVinci investment, the cash-on-cash return of the portfolio is expected to exceed 3x.
These returns, along with enhanced liquidity, shortened time to exit, and lower failure rates (remember these are established companies – with proven technologies, tangible products and existing customers), should yield superior risk-adjusted returns with overall returns comparable to historic “decade plus” venture capital model. .
(1) November 29, 2009 Wall Street Journal article titled, “Venture Funds Sweetening the Terms”
(2) 2006 Doll Capital Management Study and others
April 13, 2010 at 9:13 am
Venture Capital in Argentina
Venture-capital Venture capital in Argentina, particularly at an early stage, requires an active participation in the running of portfolio companies. One can argue that VCs practically play the role of entrepreneurs. In other words, there is no room for “dumb money”. Venture capital, for various reasons outside the scope of this piece, has to be “smart” i.e. has to be complemented with experienced management and has to have a wide network of contacts.
For free access to full content visit:
http://www.alternativelatininvestor.com/34/case-studies/venture-capital-in-argentina.html
April 27, 2010 at 8:50 am
We believe this reinforces daVinci’s thesis of a hands on venture approach to investing in these microCaps. Further the blog’s venture fund statistics do include a number of leading “smart money” funds. A lot of it is the times we are in and a daVinci strategy can potentially deliver top returns with strong liquidity and overall much mitigated risk to LP investors.