This document summarizes the results of a 2019 survey of limited partners (LPs) that invest in venture capital funds. Some key findings include:
- Single family offices and funds of funds made up the majority (66%) of survey respondents.
- Most LPs preferred committing under $5 million, with smaller funds and co-investments appealing more to non-institutional LPs.
- LPs expected to increase their allocations to both VC overall and emerging managers in 2019 compared to 2018.
- Thematic funds saw increased preference compared to generalist funds among LPs.
- Transparency, valuation issues, and strategy drift were the top frustrations cited by LPs.
- Overall confidence in
2. FRB’s Commitment to Venture Capital
500+
Total Venture
Capital Firms
Banked
300+
Emerging
Venture Capital
Firms Banked
3. RAISE LP Survey Results
41%
25%
13% 12%
6%
2%
66%
Single Family
Office
Fund of Funds Foundation /
Endowment
PensionRIA Other
Other: Family Trusts,
Corporate Advisers
Surveyed Fund Investors
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
4. Target Commitment Attracts Different Types of LPs
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
56%
12%
17%
37%
16%
17%
38%
50%
5%
32%
25%
31%
17%
2%
40%
58%
100%
31%
17%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Under $1M $1M - $5M $5M - $10M Over $10M
Distribution of Commitments
Single Family
Office
Fund of Funds Foundation /
Endowment
Pension RIA Other
5. Average Institutional LP Backing (% of commitments)
33%
47% 50%
Fund I Fund II Fund III
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
6. Non-Institutional LPs Prefer Smaller Size Funds (w/co-invest)
73%
15% 12%
Smaller funds (Co-investments/SPVs) Larger funds No difference
Larger Funds No Difference
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
Smaller Funds
($100 million or less)
7. LP average expected new allocations to VC (all types of VC)
2.8
4.8
2.7
0.0
3.0 2.82.8
8.0
1.6 2.0
2.7 2.7
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
2018 2019
Single Family
Office
Fund of Funds Foundation /
Endowment
Pension RIA Other
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
+40%
Average number of VCs added to LP portfolio
8. LP average expected new allocations to Emerging Managers
2.1
3.0
1.8
2.2
2.6
2.2
4.2
1.6
2.0 2.1
3.0
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
2018 2019
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
0.0
+40%
LPs Emerging Managers Allocations
Single Family
Office
Fund of Funds Foundation /
Endowment
Pension RIA Other
9. Most Active LPs in Emerging Managers/Micro VC Funds
Investor Type
Number of
Funds
Grantham Foundation Foundation 9
New York State Common Retirement Fund Public Pension Fund 9
Cendana Capital Private Equity Fund of Funds Manager 8
Industry Ventures Private Equity Fund of Funds Manager 8
Kapor Center for Social Impact Foundation 8
Commonwealth Financing Authority of Pennsylvania Government Agency 7
Prudential Financial Insurance Company 7
Sobrato Family Holdings Family Office - Single 7
Goldhirsh Foundation Foundation 6
Naver Corporate Investor 6
TIFF Private Equity Fund of Funds Manager 6
University of Texas Investment Management Company Endowment Plan 6
As Of Q1 2019
10. Fund Type Preferences - Thematic vs. Generalist
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
53%
18%
29%30%
40%
30%
Thematic Generalist No difference
Thematic vs. Generalist Fund
Preference (Aggregate)
2018 2019
53%
18%
29%
37% 34%
29%
Thematic Fund Generalist No difference
Non-Institutional LPs Preference for
Thematic vs. Generalist Funds
2018 2019
+22%
+16%
-23%
-16%
12. 6%
53%
41%
10%
41%
49%
Non-Institutional LPs
Preference
2018 2019
Single GP Multiple GPs No Difference
Partnership Type Preferences
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
-12%
+4%
-12%
+8%
+12%
18%
41% 41%
6%
53%
41%
Single vs. Multiple GP Preference
(Aggregate)
2018 2019
Single GP Multiple GPs No Difference
13. LPs Due Diligence Duration from First Meeting
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
21%
46%
20%
12%
82%
64%
58%
38%
10%
14%
17%
62%
8%
21% 25%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Duration of Due Diligence - Details
<= 6 months 6 - 12 months 12 months +
Duration of Due Diligence
(aggregate)
3
months
3-6
months
6-12
months
12+
months
Single Family
Office
Fund of Funds Foundation/
Endowment
RIA
14. Top LP Frustrations
7%
8%
9%
12%
12%
14%
18%
20%
Other
Management fees
Long investment hold times
Investment valuations
Team turnover
Transparency
Carried interest above 20%
Strategy drift
For 2018 the top 3 LP frustrations were:
1. Premium fees
2. Investment valuation
3. Transparency, and strategy drift
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
15. Venture Capital Confidence Index
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
7.2
6.0 6.0
5.7 5.5
5.3
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Overall Average
CI: 5.9
Average Confidence Index
Single Family
Office
Fund of Funds Foundation /
Endowment
Pension RIA Other
16. How Important is Liquidity?
SOURCE(S): 2019 RAISE LP SURVEY
2018 2019
-9%
84%
75%
% of LPs Who Think GPs Should Pursue Secondary Transactions
Editor's Notes
Ben
Excited
LPs think?
Get to LP data in a sec
Thanks Ben, very excited to be here!
So, who wants to know what LPs think?
Get to LP data in a sec
EM + MicroVC important practice
Best VCs of tomorrow
Already work with you
Thank you
400 fundraises
Share LP data
Second year Raise LP survey
Every year gets better
100 respondents = 2x
So, let’s get into the LP data already!
Emerging Managers and Micro-VC is a very important part our practice at FRB
We believe that the best VCs of tomorrow are the emerging managers of today
We already work with many of you in this room - thank you for your support
Our team has gone through over 400 fundraises with emerging managers
And I’d like to share the LP data from the survey
This is the second year we ran the Raise LP survey
Every year gets better – we had 100 respondents this time, which is 2x last year!
So, let’s get into the LP data already!
Majority of respondents
Not surprising
Family offices check sizes
Fund of funds
What does the data say?
Vast majority of respondents were family offices and fund of funds
Not surprising
Family offices check sizes are most in line with emerging managers and micro VC
Fund of funds typically have active mandates to invest to VC
Overwhelming
Breakdown by LP type
Average Fund I (cite it – FRB 100 EM)
As expected, the main source capital
Foundations and pensions
RIAs
I know this slide can be a bit overwhelming
But here’s a breakdown of average commitments by LP type
The average fund size for a Fund I is $33M – from a survey we conducted at FRB with 100 emerging managers earlier this year
As we expected, the main source of capital is family office and fund of funds
Foundations and pensions are typically 10% to 20% of a fund
So funds over $100M would be best fits
And RIAs come in different sizes so commitments are pretty diverse too
1/3 capital
Scales up
Exception we observed
Spin out managers
Often well north of 50%
About 1/3 of capital is institutional for fund I’s
Scales to 50% by fund III
The exception we observed is that spin out managers from bigger platforms have a higher percentage of institutional capital
Often well north of 50%
For non-inst., vast majority
Why is that?
Ability to co-invest / pro-rata
Conversations with LPs
For non-institutional LPs, we found that the vast majority ~75% preferred smaller funds
Why is that?
Because of their ability to co-invest in future financing rounds through pro-rata
In fact, the main selling point for micro-VCs for LPs is the ability to coinvest
Probably many of you have experienced these conversations with LPs
New additions of ALL VC
Fund of funds active
Skewed data / remove outlier
Far more family offices
10,000+ according to
Important thing to highlight is that these are new additions of ALL VC types to portfolio
Fund of funds appear to be most active on average
Skewed data given an outlier
If we were to remove this outlier from sample set, the number actually looks more similar to 2018 – an average of 4.2 for 2019
However, it’s important to note that there are far more family offices in both the survey sample set and globally
10,000+ according to the global family office report
More interesting data
Most active
Surprising
Anecdotally / made bets / selectively
However, positive sign
Family offices more active
With emerging managers / alpha
Now this is probably the more interesting data for this audience
Again, fund of funds appear to be most active
Which is surprising to us, in general and anecdotally we hear that fund of funds already made their bets and re-upping w/existing managers and only selectively adding new names
However, this is a very positive sign and encouraging
Family offices have become more active within emerging managers space given their check sizes, but also because they don’t have access top tier legacy firms
With emerging managers they have the best shot at alpha returns
Preqin
LPs who’ve allocated
Interesting / roster
According to Preqin, here’s a list of LPs who were active in 2018
It’ll be interesting to see what this roster looks like for this year
Who’s active
LP preferences
Let’s start
Decrease year over year
Higher interest
Last year 20 AI funds, 2 this year
Not sure
We’ve heard narrow scope / competitive advantage
Ok we know who’s active
Now let’s look at LP preferences starting with thematic vs. generalist fund types
Pronounced decrease in preference for thematic funds year over year
And higher interest in generalist funds
Last year 20 AI funds, this year only 2
Not sure what’s exactly driving this
We’ve heard that it might be LP’s perception that thematic funds have too narrow of a scope or lack competitive advantage within that theme
Similar to last year
No strong
Non-institutional LPs preference doubled
Lower valuations / less noisy
Similar to last year, there is no strong preference for geographically focused funds
However, non-institutional LPs preference has nearly doubled
Might be due to lower valuations and less noisy environments outside of the valley
Majority continue to prefer
However, solo GP
Non-institutional LPs no preference
The majority of LPs continue to prefer multiple GPs partnerships
However, if you’re a solo GP, I wouldn't be overly concerned here
Nearly 60% of non-institutional LPs expressed that they have no preference or had a preference towards single GP
Reinforce family offices
Surprising
Our experience, longest sales cycles
We hear / like pre-existing
Anecdotally, 1 year
Data based on LPs pre-existing
This slides reinforces that family offices are indeed the fastest movers
Surprising to see fund of funds at 64% and foundations at 58%
Our experience is that institutional LPs have the longest sales cycles
We heard that they like pre-existing relationships
Anecdotally, they like to get to know a manager at least for 1 year before considering allocating
So the data here might be based on LPs with pre-existing relationships with managers before spinning out
Much of the same as last year
Strategy drift, Premium fees and lack of transparency remain top frustrations for LPs
For venture capital, scale
Market uncertainties
High valuations
Bullish and optimistic
Strong year
Here’s what the confidence index looks like currently for venture capital
Might be because of uncertainties around the market, fear of high valuations
However, fund of funds are most bullish and optimistic
And we also expect a strong year from both a fundraising and liquidity standpoint
On that note, to conclude
Starting to see M&A / IPO – 12-18 mo
But, staying private
Extending liquidity cycles
As a result,
LPs focus on / encourage
Good news! More GP data from Joanna
Hopefully you found the data useful
If you want to discuss in detail, reach out to myself Hana Yang and team
We’ll be here throughout the conference
Thank you!
On that note, and to conclude, we’re starting to see more M&A and IPO activity in the last 12-18 months
But, companies are still staying private longer
Thus extending liquidity cycles
As a result, LPs continue to focus on and encourage GPs to take opportunities for liquidity via secondary transactions
Good news! You’ll hear more about this from the GP data from Joanna