Venture Capital in tech

 

Theory and Practice

Venture Capital in tech

 

Theory and Practice

Technical

 

Theory


Practice

What is a Venture Capital company

General Partners (GP)

manage

10-years Investment Fund

Investment Fund

Investment Fund

Limited Partners

(LP)

Startup

Invest money in

Get funding from

Uni endowment

Pension funds

Hedge funds

Money managers

Charity endowment

Software

Pharma

Nuclear

Space

...

VC

Funding Round

Invest money in

Wait 10 years

Help

Liquidation event

Get money with markup

Return a profit

Pre-Seed

Seed

Serie A

Serie B

...

Acquisition

IPO

Resale on the private market

Bankruptcy

Hopefully

The Plan

Incentives

How do you make sure GPs do a good job ?



How do you make sure LPs pick you ?

Investment Thesis

  • Model of the world of startup
  • What to invest in
    • Specialisation
  • How to help them grow
  • What are the best moment to invest
  • ...

Story for Investors

20 and 2

  • 20% of the total profit
    • "Carry"
    • At the end of the fund (10 years)
    • "Success fee"
  • 2% yearly of the fund value
    • Based on marked-to-market value
    • "Management fee"

Investment Thesis in theory

Really generic, but shared by a lot in Silicon Valley (SV)

General Partners (GP)

manage

10-years Investment Fund

Limited Partners

(LP)

Startup

Invest money in

Invest money in

Uni endowment

Pension funds

Hedge funds

Money managers

Charity endowment

Software

Pharma

Nuclear

Space

...

How a tech startup work

  • Capital Heavy
  • Profitable because able to touch a lot of people
  • So you need to scale
  • Network effect
    • Winner-take-all
    • First entrant moat
    • So you need to scale faster than any competitor
  • Growing cost money
    • no profit until you switch to stopping growth

Lot of Failure

But lot of profit if succesful!

How return work

  • Need approx 12% return per year
    • Inflation
    • beat market index (approx 7%)
    • Fees!
  • Translate to need to be 3x over 10 years
  • If high failure rate, need the success to be big!

In practice ?

Can become profitable

Return better than market index

Lot of failure!

Lot of failure ?

YES

Around 80% at least bankrupt

Can beat the market ?

NO

Can become profitable ?

Noone care

IPO and acquisition with no idea of profit being possible

  • Uber
  • PagerDuty
  • NewRelic
  • NPM
  • Github
  • Tell me one that did profit
  • ...

Can become profitable ?

Ever Growing size of Investment Rounds

What is happening ?

20 and 2

  • 20% of the total profit
    • 0 as the return is low
    • Bad, money in 10 years.
      • I want to buy a house now as a GP
  • 2% yearly of the fund value
    • Based on marked-to-market value
      • Wait a minute...

Funding Round

Invest money in

Wait 10 years

Help

Liquidation event

Get money with markup

Return a profit

Pre-Seed

Seed

Serie A

Serie B

...

Acquisition

IPO

Resale on the private market

Bankruptcy

Hopefully

The Plan

Seed

Serie A

Serie B

The Plan from the GP point of view

...

Grow at X%/month

100 shares at 100USD

1USD per share

100 shares at 200USD

2USD per share

Seed shares went from 1 USD to 2 USD

 

2cents per share yearly became 4 cents

100 shares at 400USD

4USD per share

Seed shares went from 1 USD to 4 USD

2 cents per share yearly became 8 cents

 

A shares went from 2 USD to 4 USD

4 cents per share yearly became 8 cents

...

Grow at 2X%/month

...

Seed

Serie A

The Plan from the LP point of view

Grow at X%/month

100 shares at 100USD

1USD per share

100 shares at 200USD

2USD per share

Seed shares went from 1 USD to 2 USD

  • Big Rate of Return
  • 2X in a year !
  • Let's invest more now in this VC !

Final thought

I don't know mate

Understand how the system work

GROWTH! GROWTH! GROWTH!

I don't know mate

Understand how the system work
GROWTH! GROWTH! GROWTH!

Venture Capital in tech

 

Theory and Practice