Venture Fundraising in 2010

2009 was clearly a difficult year for venture firms – continued turmoil in the public markets and the broader economy prolonged the dearth of venture-backed IPO and M&A activity, extending the liquidity drought for venture firms. Illiquidity negatively impacted fund performance, and more importantly the confidence limited partners (investors in venture capital funds) have in the asset class. The drop in confidence is most evident in their commitments to venture funds, which in 2009 fell significantly. According to Dow Jones, “overall VC fund-raising fell 54.6% to $13 billion across 120 funds from the $28.7 billion collected by 204 funds in 2008. It was the slowest year since 2003.” Here are a few things to watch for in 2010 in terms of fundraising:

Commitments to Top Tier Funds:

Fundraising totals for 2009 would have been worse had it not been for New Enterprise Associates (NEA) closing its thirteenth fund with $2.5 billion in commitments. While the fund took longer than expected to close, the fact that it was eventually able to do at a such a large size shows that institutional investors still have an appetite for firms like NEA that have a record of consistently delivering top quartile returns. This will be a theme going forward – we will see the most sold performers (firms such as Sequoia, Kliener Perkins, Matrix, Battery, etc.) continue to be able to raise capital, but fund sizes will still come down. If for some reason we see a top firm unable to get close to its fundraising target, it would be a sign that limited partner perception of the asset class is worse than feared. The shockwaves would be felt across the venture universe.

 The Numerator Effect

Over the past couple of years, the “denominator effect” has been a central issue for most large institutional investors / limited partners. Some quick background for the unfamiliar: If you think of an institutional investor’s allocation to venture capital as a fraction, the denominator is the total value of their total investment portfolio. The numerator is what is invested in venture capital. Stocks and bonds are traded daily, whereas venture capital is only valuated quarterly. When stock prices fell during the recession, it brought down the value of the overall portfolio, or the denominator, but at the same time, the percent actually invested in venture capital went up because the value of venture portfolios 1) are reported on a lag and therefore had yet to be written down in line with the public markets, and 2) didn’t declines as much relative to marketable securities.

In 2010, what we have already seen is that the denominator has rebounded – in line with the stock market (for example, the NASDAQ was up around 40% in 2009). However, the numerator, or value of institutional investors’ venture portfolios has remained suppressed – again, because venture capital valuations are reported on a lag. The real value of the numerator won’t be known until final year-end 2009 data is taken into account, which won’t be until April. Once that happens, institutional investors will really be able to get a true sense of where their allocations stand. This means that the second half of 2010 should see more commitments than the first half.  

 Attrition:

Early in 2009, PE Hub’s Dan Primack released a list of “The VC Walking Dead.” These were venture capital firms that were officially in business but which no longer had enough cash to add new portfolio companies. Presumably that meant they will no longer try or be able to raise subsequent funds.  Expect the list of firms that fall under this category to grow in 2010. The bar for venture firms will be much higher going forward. The amount of capital committed to the asset class will probably never (or not for a really long time) return to the levels of 1999-2000, or even 2007 for that matter. It’s the general consensus that there was too much capital in the venture industry and limited partners weary of the asset class have every reason to be extra judicious with their commitments. That spells bad news for undifferentiated firms, inexperienced firms, and firms with poor track records.