Venture Capital Funds
See: Venture Capital. See: Venture Capitalist.
So...VC funds are the darling lottery ticket of the wealthy, for the most part. Most quality funds come with investment minimums of a million bucks. A typical fund is $500 million-ish. And fund administrators are happy to just have a few hundred investors to deal with, rather than thousands.
So how's it work? Well, initially, there is a call made, asking for investor money to kick off the fund. If a Limited Partner has committed $1 million, and 15% is called for the fund's inception, then the LP writes a check for $150,000 to the General Partners of the fund, who take 2% a year off the bat for management fees. That money then starts to get invested in promising startups. And little by little, the million bucks is drawn down from LPs until the fund is "done."
Most funds last about a decade. After a few years, hopefully, funds start to realize gains and then distribute back to LPs the winnings, usually after taking their 20-30% cut of profits. The LPs receive the gains in cash if a cash purchase was made (i.e. MSFT bought a young startup that has awesome cell phone security for $100 million in cash, and the fund owned 12% of it, so the fund books a $12 million cash gain). Or the funds are distributed out in shares.
If LPs get shares in return for their investment, then those shares are not taxable as gains until the LP sells those shares and turn them into cash. Some funds return many multiples of their original inception value...but 3x the fund, or $1.5 billion in 10 years, in this case, is considered a "good score," even though (relative to the S&P 500) it's not all that great in most periods, given the amount of risk taken.
But some funds return 20x, 30x, 50x...hence the lottery ticket vibe, and the renaming of it being a venture fund to just being...venture "fun."
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What are Five Questions You Can...10 Views
Finance a la shmoop what are five questions you can expect to be asked in
a venture capital investing interview? okay so if you're watching this video
we're gonna assume you're not an already successful entrepreneur who takes a seat [Woman watching shmoop video]
as an EIR or entrepreneur in residence which is a completely different kind of
interview in that case you're likely investing five million or so of your own
dollars into the fund as a limited partner and then opining on which
investments you like and don't like as the firm is rating your rolodex and in
this case it's more like the firm is interviewing you than the other way [Men appear beside woman]
around so we're gonna skip right through the EIR thing we're also going to
assume that this is a Sand Hill Road Silicon Valley VC firm that you're
interviewing stunningly few great companies have been built outside of
that little bubble on earth so there is understandably not a lot of demand from
investors to throw money at such tech hubs as Clearwater Florida Nashville
Tennessee and burnt corn Alabama you know that's a real place but ok so you
just graduated the business school at Stanford or you have a PhD with a whole [Woman standing beside her details]
lot of work experience at Google or Facebook or Amazon or one of the blessed
hot companies fast on the rise you're likely in your mid to late 20s
and you're not really sure what you want to do with your life maybe become an [Woman walking through the park]
investor maybe become a founder of a hot company yourself you just haven't found
that great idea yet or maybe you want to be a very early employee at the next
Google or Facebook hundreds of amazingly talented
candidates want your seat they're all fighting for them and there are precious [Woman with candidates for interview]
few seats you actually want that are available like there's a lot of really
bad VC firms you don't want to work for you note that only a dozen or so venture
funds are actually demonstrably good most of them kind of sort of almost
break-even year after year but have a prayer of something grey maybe someday
but investors couldn't get into Sequoia or kleiner or f8 so the overflow goes to
the next dozen or hundred or thousand and yes,
there are actually thousands of mediocre VC firms who exist and yes, only a few
of them are actually good meaning that they have returned to investors
consistently better results than they could have gotten just investing in an
S&P 500 index fund so beware that you're entering the lottery ticket business [Person scratches lottery card with coin]
yeah that's kind of what the world of VC is great work if you really know how to
flip head 16 times in a row and we have an award-winning video on that subject
if you want it first up why are you doing this? why are you here
and the person asking you that question will have kind of some rancor in their
voice with the eyebrows knitted... best answer in the world because I couldn't [Baseball thrown into air from stadium]
throw a curve ball yeah if we could all be pitchers and make like a million
bucks a game like why wouldn't we do that but we can't so we don't and well
here we are but you give it to them straight I don't know what I want to be
when I grow up and most VC's will laugh at you with no investing track [VC woman laughing]
record if you tell them that you want to be a general partner at the firm in
order to get a portfolio to run money to manage well you have to have a long
track record of making money for shareholders a magnetic history that
attracts the best entrepreneurs to want to take money from you instead of the 87
others all throwing money at them and so on so be straight you don't know all
right second question what do you know? well you're an ABD; all but dissertation
PhD from MIT now expert in underwater robotics [A robot under water]
particularly with the military applications
well you detail for them the challenges in operating machinery in cold saltwater
battery issues volts recovery when one fails the cost structure the
state-of-the-art like what the Russians and Chinese are building and what
they're doing in Atlantis and then you regale them with your amazing knowledge
on this arcane but hot investment area like imagine digging for gold [Robot digging under water]
robotically under the sea under the sea and then you dangle the golden nugget a
golden nugget yeah you talk about the discovery show gold and dream about an
army or fleet of automated underwater drilling robots who just drill all day [Woman celebrating]
and night at non-union wages and return a week later with pot loads of gold well
who knows maybe one of the VC's will be so enamored
the idea they'll want to angel fund you to go start that company and you amused [VC woman celebrating with arms in the air]
yourself that the VC's who funded Google made like 8 billion bucks
the founders made 80 billion so in a bake-off being a founder of a company
that does well is always preferable to just being the one who poured coffee and [Man takes sip of coffee]
equity for them but being the investor right better to be the founder than just
the investor all right third question what do you expect your day to be like?
well early on in a VC career you're just smiling and dialing you literally do [Woman answers phone]
nothing all day long other than email and cold call CEOs and key executives of
hot startups asking if they need money well you'd better know this in advance
it's called deal sourcing and it is the hazing entry job of the VC world so why
do they need PhDs and Stanford MBAs doing this perfunctory task well because
the VC firm has to appear smart on the other end of the phone line it's kind of
a firm branding thing like an ego thing like the firm wants the best and [Candidates lined up for interview]
brightest of the country to be their front end and firms always think they're
better than they actually are or at least perceived the clients want
the Harvard Stanford MIT moniker and so the VC's pay up for that highly
synthesized talent and they pay a lot all right fourth question what do you
want to earn? well if they are already asking you that question in the
interview that's a really good sign they wouldn't be asking if they were trying
to convince you to take a job as a business development exec at pre-
bankruptcy.com yeah and the right answer whatever you pay will be just [Woman waving arms in the air]
fine I'm sure you guys have a rep for being fair to your young people that's
the right answer when they ask you about comp whether they do or don't VC's love
hearing crap like that so feed the beast you're marketing yourself here not at a
confessional right all right fifth question what happens if you wash out?
well as we mentioned the VC business is largely the business of picking the
right lottery ticket there are thousands of VC's actively managing money and only
ten good deals happen in a year a good year so the odds of you washing out are [Man discussing chances of washing out]
extremely high and if you do well there's no option to stand on the street
corner holding up a sign saying we'll roll dice for food [Man holding sign to roll dice for food]
so what do you do well I'm really good at creating financial models so I could
work for an investment bank right? no you'll be too old when you wash out
you'll be 30 or more oh well it could be a CFO for one of the companies right?
no the skill of a VC is about investing high risk capital, not about counting the
beans of an already going concern well after a long silence you ask about the [Boy sitting at desk with PC]
interviewers belief and trust and tarot cards and psychics and ask about job
opportunities in that field yeah you wash out there's no mercy
so may the spirits be with you roll them well roll the bone...
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