VC Fund Performance: Q1 2026

Executive summary

For venture fund managers, it was a promising start to the year. In Q1 2026, median net TVPI increased for nearly every recent vintage of VC funds tracked on Carta. On a slightly longer timeframe, the picture is even clearer: Over the past six quarters, median TVPIs have climbed steadily for every vintage from 2017 through 2024.

This represents a welcome reversal for GPs. Three years ago, a troubling trend had started to emerge: After having skyrocketed in the previous several quarters, the median net TVPI for every vintage from 2017 through 2020 began to decline. In some cases—such as for the 2018 vintage—the drop-off was perilously steep. 

But from today’s vantage, it appears the VC market has turned the page.  Recent declines in TVPI have come to an end, and a new phase of up and to the right has begun.

The reasons for the initial downward momentum are no secret. TVPI measures the value of both the realized and unrealized assets held by a VC fund. During the early 2020s, when valuations across the startup universe were experiencing a phase of explosive growth, the value of the assets held by these recent vintages mostly went up. In 2022, the music stopped. A reset in valuations began. And in many cases, the valuations of assets held in VC funds from the late 2010s started to decline. 

The factors driving the recent reversal are also clear enough: Valuations have been rising once again. At most stages of VC fundraising, median valuations are significantly higher today than they were six quarters ago. At every stage, 90th percentile valuations have surged. As the value of assets goes up, the value of the funds that hold those assets go up, too. 

Yet this only tells half the story. And, for fund managers and their LPs, it’s the less important half. Unrealized valuations of VC-owned assets may be trending up. But realized gains—the deals that actually put cash in investors’ pockets—are still relatively few and far between.

This is best demonstrated by the paucity of DPI that has been generated by most recent fund vintages. In each of the 2019 and 2020 vintages, for instance, median DPIs are still barely over zero, and less than half of all funds have begun to return any capital at all to their LPs. The 2017 and 2018 cohorts are the only recent vintages with much DPI to speak of, and even then, the return profiles remain relatively slight. Across those two vintages, less than 20% of funds have yet reached a 1x DPI, marking the point at which fund LPs start to earn a profit, rather than simply getting back the capital that they initially paid in. 

In the big picture, the latest data shows promising signs for the performance of recent VC funds. But the challenge for the investors managing those funds is clear. Eventually, they will need to convert the unrealized gains that these vehicles are experiencing into concrete returns, producing profits for themselves and their LPs that will allow the flywheel of venture capital fundraising to keep on spinning.

Q1 highlights

• Top-decile IRRs top 20%: For every fund vintage from 2017 through 2024 (with the exception of 2021), the 90th percentile for net IRR is currently higher than 20%. In none of these vintages is the 75th percentile for IRR above 15.5%. At least among these funds, most of which are still being actively managed, only a small minority of vehicles are achieving the sorts of performance that many LPs expect. 

• Fundraising starts strong in 2026: Investors on Carta raised $3.9 billion across 86 new venture funds in Q1, with the latter figure representing the most funds closed in any Q1 since 2022. The year is still young, but for now, 2026 is on pace for the most new funds and most cash raised in any full year since 2022. 

• VC fundraising keeps getting more concentrated: About 57% of all cash raised by new funds on Carta in 2025 went to vehicles with at least $100 million in commitments. Eight years ago, that figure was just 31%. The majority of all funds closed are smaller than $25 million. But the few large funds that do close are gobbling up more and more of the total fundraising pie. 

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