These are the greatest hits from the year on #OpenLP, a resource for the venture community to hear from a diverse group of LP and GP voices.
LP & GP Voices
Valuing a Venture Capital Portfolio
Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson shares his best practices and rules to live by for valuing a VC portfolio quarterly, and how Union Square Ventures does this conservatively and consistently.
Harlem Capital's Nicole DeTommaso put together a VC exit model that allows investors to see what their exit potential is at different check sizes. It's also helpful for founders to see when fundraising so they can understand the impact of dilution on current & future investors.
Succeeding in VC is About Knowing What to Buy And When to Sell
Hunter Walk
There’s a lot of talk about when to buy, but rarely when to sell. With no hard and fast best practices for secondary transactions, Hunter Walk and the team at Homebrew codified their own ruleset.
A Look Back at Our Letters to our LPs and Capital Exuberance
Michael Eisenberg
Michael Eisenberg lifts the curtain on a particularly classified aspect of venture capital and shares a rare glimpse of Aleph's LP letters over the last few years. A look back at the flood of capital from the bull run and how the market has changed.
Which investments generate the greatest venture returns: enterprise or consumer? To answer this, Sapphire Partners created a database of enterprise vs consumer performance data to spot patterns and analyze returns. The full report shows intriguingly interesting consistencies over the past few decades.
Dirty Secret: Venture Reserves are Not Always a Good Thing
Laura Thompson
Nearly every early-stage manager has a reserve strategy incorporated into their fund model nowadays. But... and here’s the dirty secret… venture reserves are not always a good thing, says Laura Thompson of Sapphire Partners. Here's why.
Though the cadence of fundraising has slowed, Sapphire's Nate Leung views the last few months as a healthy reset for the VC ecosystem after a frothy 2021. And while this environment places additional pressure on emerging managers, many are still actively in market raising funds.
The Three-Body Problem: Finding the New Stable Points in VC
Frank Rotman
This report gives framework to the changes that are occurring in the startup ecosystem, the LP community and how VC firms need to strategically reorient themselves to survive.
Weekend Fund's Ryan Hoover and Vedika Jain pulled together 13 VC fund decks that successfully raised $500M+. This September edition of Signature Block includes a template, tips for your pitch, and links to all of the decks.
First Republic Bank & J. Thelander Consulting, Inc.
This year's report takes a deeper look at how investors' compensation has changed year-over year by AUM and how women’s representation at each position has changed. It also examines how the introduction and existence of diversity and inclusion-promoting recruiting practices and committees is influenced by total AUM.
As an aspiring or emerging LP, the journey is often a black box on how to pick great GPs to back. David Zhou spoke with dozens of LPs and published what he calls "his most tactical blog post to date" - a deep dive for emerging LPs.
What’s in store for 2023? What are the biggest opportunities in terms of investment stages and types of businesses? How will VC evolve in the year ahead? January Ventures' Maren Bannon spoke with leading investors to get their predictions.
This extensive roundup of 2023 insights from 50 of technology's top thought leaders shares what we can expect to come next year, including company & VC resets, continued recalibration by LPs, a reduction of micro funds, a renewed focus on outcomes & fundamentals and much more.
Forecast: VCs Stockpiled Record Funds This Year. Where Will All That ‘Dry Powder’ Go In 2023?
Gené Teare
Venture firms have continued to raise record funds in 2022, even as startups received far less money than they did last year. That poses the question: What will happen with all that dry powder in 2023?
OpenLP is an initiative of Sapphire Partners, the LP arm of Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Partners invests in early-stage, technology-focused venture funds from an evergreen-like capital structure.
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Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”). Information provided reflects Sapphires’ views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. No assumptions should be made that any investment listed above were or will be profitable. Various content and views contained within this article represent those of third party guests, which do not necessarily reflect the views of Sapphire. Such views are subject to change at any point and do not in any way represent official statements by Sapphire.Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in any statement made. Nothing contained in this article may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
