The Median Emerging VC Fund Is Struggling Right Now

The Median Emerging VC Fund Is Struggling Right Now

Author

Peter Walker

|

Read time: 

1 minute

Published date: 

March 20, 2025

From 2,079 US funds through FY2024: the median net IRR for emerging managers has declined across most vintages, with 2021 particularly challenged by the...

LinkedIn: The Median Emerging VC Fund Is Struggling Right Now

The median emerging VC fund is struggling these days.

We released a new VC Fund Performance report with data through the end of 2024. Data covered 2,079 funds from $1M through $1B.

But the heart of the analysis is emerging managers — typically Fund I through III with AUMs between $10M and $100M.

So - how are these folks doing right now?

...well, not great.

Data below shows the median net IRR for each vintage year of funds from 2017—2023.

You'd expect to see the standard J-curve for fund performance as measured in IRR — funds invest cash into startups (so the performance dips at first), then those startups are marked up at higher valuations over time so the performance gets into positive territory.

Unfortunately for 2021 vintage funds, getting back to positive territory has been a real challenge. 3 years in, median net IRR remains negative for that vintage year.

And you can clearly see the IRRs respond to the venture capital downturn across every vintage. The moment (early 2022) hit each line at a different point but no vintage has escaped unscathed.

Of course if you're investing into venture funds you're not really looking for median performance. The deep dive out Monday will dig into top quartile and top decile fund data as well. IRR, TVPI, and DPI for vintage year and fund size.

Read the full report now: https://lnkd.in/dswa4XC4

#VC #emergingmanagers #VCfunds #venturecapital #startups

Peter Walker
Author: Peter Walker
Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.

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