As we (and others) have written about in recent months, the venture market is experiencing some systemic challenges that have the potential to depress returns for some time.
I have couple of objections. If you look at the five year historic context in your table you clearly see that Top 5% performance tanks during post-ZIRP times. I think there is also factor of stock change in VC system (Slow-exit of old stock/portfolio and costly entries of new stock probably shifted industry dynamics.). VCs are moving from lucrative GTM heavy B2B SaaS in their portfolio to Capex heavy AI world. This was probably first time since after the Intel founding era where VCs bet on foundries. Which is also a good thing. VCs should feel the fire of reality after decade long funding of one-feature SaaS companies, ridiculous apps and whipping founders on not-justified growth. VCs used to be cool.
I have couple of objections. If you look at the five year historic context in your table you clearly see that Top 5% performance tanks during post-ZIRP times. I think there is also factor of stock change in VC system (Slow-exit of old stock/portfolio and costly entries of new stock probably shifted industry dynamics.). VCs are moving from lucrative GTM heavy B2B SaaS in their portfolio to Capex heavy AI world. This was probably first time since after the Intel founding era where VCs bet on foundries. Which is also a good thing. VCs should feel the fire of reality after decade long funding of one-feature SaaS companies, ridiculous apps and whipping founders on not-justified growth. VCs used to be cool.