How Well Do VCs Really Perform?

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The Early | 11th Edition

Happy April! Hope everyone’s having a great spring so far 🐣 As always, thanks all for following and for checking out the job board! 

A quick note: If you have a chance, please fill out this week’s poll! It’s a huge help to understand what resources you want to see (and I may have a small thank-you for respondents) 🙂 

💹 Today’s schedule:

• New VC Roles This Week 💫

• VC Industry Performance 🤔 

• Blue-Chip Case Studies: Sequoia and Union Square Ventures ✏️ 

• Tomorrow: Interview w/ Everett Sanderson (City Light VC) 🤩

• Poll: Pick the Next Topic for The Early 💭

• Refer a Friend 🙂

• Resources 📝

• Say Hi 👋

New VC Roles This Week 💫 

Internships 🤓 

• Summer Analyst @ Bessemer Venture Partners (New York, NY) - Apply Here

• Ventures Intern, Mobility @ Plug and Play (Stuttgart, GER) - Apply Here

Analyst 😍 

• Analyst/Associate @ Baukunst (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

• Analyst @ Left Lane Capital (New York, NY) - Apply Here by April 8th

• Venture Analyst @ AngelList (Hybrid - New York, NY) - Apply Here

• Ventures Analyst, FinTech @ Plug and Play (Frisco/McKinney, TX) - Apply Here

Associate/Senior Associate 😄 

• VC Associate @ JetBlue Ventures (San Carlos, CA) - Apply Here

• Ventures Associate @ Plug and Play (Multiple Locations):

  • Ventures Associate, Manufacturing (Austin, TX) - Apply Here

  • Ventures Associate, Semiconductors (Orlando, FL) - Apply Here

  • Ventures Associate, Sustainability (Sunnyvale, CA) - Apply Here

• Associate, Consumer @ Silas Capital (New York, NY) - Apply Here

• Investment Associate, Healthcare @ B Capital (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

• Venture Associate @ Capital Factory (Multiple Locations)

  • Austin, TX - Apply Here

  • Dallas, TX - Apply Here

Operational Roles 🤠 

• Deal Operations Associate @ OMERS Ventures (Toronto, New York, or Palo Alto) - Apply Here

• Marketing Associate @ Next Legacy Partners (Palo Alto, CA) - Apply Here

• Marketing Design Associate @ Plug and Play (Sunnyvale, CA) - Apply Here

• Marketing Associate @ Reach Capital (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

• Business Development Manager @ AngelList (Hybrid - San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

Roles Still Open From Last Week 🏃‍♀️ 

• Chief of Staff/Associate @ Cowboy Ventures (Palo Alto, CA) - Apply Here

• Venture Capital Analyst @ DVC (Remote/San Francisco, CA/New York, NY) - Apply Here

• Investment Analyst @ Giant Leap (Remote - Australia) - Apply here by April 21st

• Associate at Gingerbread Capital (Remote) - Apply Here

• Associate at PLUS Capital (Los Angeles, CA) - Apply Here

• Senior Associate Intern @ MFV Partners (San Francisco, CA) - Apply Here

• Summer Analyst @ Thomson Reuters Ventures (New York, NY) - Apply Here

❗️ Note that many VC roles are posted without application deadlines and filled on a rolling basis - if you see one you like, I’d recommend applying within a week, or as soon as possible!

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How Well Do VC Firms Really Perform? 🤔 

Given how opaque the VC ecosystem can be, it’s not surprising that it’s hard to find data on how well firms are really performing.

Industry Performance Stats

Here is the industry-wide data on VC performance from Cambridge Associates’ VC Benchmark Report, updated as of Sept. 2023. ⬇️ 

• Investments made by top-quartile VC firms in early-stage companies produced an average IRR of 25%+ over the last 25 years. (The S&P 500 averaged a ~7.1% annual return over the same period) 😱 

Blue-Chip Case Studies: Sequoia and Union Square Ventures

Individual VC firms aren’t required to publicly disclose their performance. However, public institutions that invest in VCs do share some data on returns. Below are case studies on established funds Sequoia Capital and Union Square Ventures. ⬇️ 

Sequoia Capital 1-Year Performance (June' ‘22 - June ‘23)

💡 Insights

• In the 12 months ending in June 2023, Sequoia Capital marked up 15 of its funds by an average of 9.2%.

• Sequoia also wrote down four of its funds by an average of 6.9% in the same year.

• At the same time, three Khosla Ventures funds lost an average of 16.6% of their value, Iconiq Capital lost 25.6% and GGV’s funds lost 4.2%.

• Sequoia drastically outperformed the industry average of -16.3% over the same time period.

📖  Additional Reads on Sequoia’s Performance

• Sequoia Capital distributed $10 billion to its investors in 2023 even as it faced steep markdowns (Business Insider; Jan. 2024)

Union Square Ventures (USV) - 2004-2015 Fund Performance

💡 Insights

• Union Square Ventures is consistently one of the best-performing VCs in the industry, often beating out other ‘household name’ firms.

• USV’s 2004 fund achieved an IRR of 66%, which is over a 13x return. (In general, a 3-5x fund return is considered a very strong outcome.)

• They’ve delivered close to a 60% annual return — 59%, to be exact — over the past decade 😱 

• UTIMCO, one of USV’s limited partners, has seen a return of over $1.2B from an initial $130M investment.

📖 Additional Reads on USV’s Performance

• Private venture capital returns from one of the largest endowments reveal Union Square Ventures has been wildly successful. (Business Insider, Jan. 2023)

*Note: Fund performance and IRR can vary dramatically from year to year.

Tomorrow: Interview with Everett Sanderson 👏 

This Thursday, I’ll be sharing an awesome conversation with my friend Everett Sanderson 🎉 Everett is an investor at City Light VC where he focuses on the climate, edtech, and healthcare sectors. Everett graduated from Cornell and worked in investment banking before joining City Light.

We chat about:

• Different paths into VC and the importance of helping others

• Transitioning from Investment Banking to VC

• Impact and climate investing

• Advice for young professionals on networking and relationship-building

• & more! 🙂 

Poll: What Do You Want to See From The Early? 📝 

Refer a Friend 👭 

Enjoying the newsletter? Click the button below to refer a friend 🙂 

Resources 📝 

• Download my meeting notes template for VC/investment pitches 🧠

• Check out my previous post for a list of VC interview resources that I use!

• Take a look at the Early VC job board with roles updated twice weekly 🤗 

Say Hi! 👋 

And that’s all for this week! You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X. As always, feel free to reach out to [email protected] with any questions and/or feedback. I’d love to hear from you!🙂 

-Mic