Venture Fund Portfolio Construction | Journal | Kauffman Fellows

Fund Structure

Traditional Fund

Traditional funds typically do a “big bang” fundraise and begin deploying capital after the First Close. Once the fund is officially closed, they’re unable to accept new LPs.

That said, it’s not uncommon for fund managers to leave their fund “open” for several months while deploying and raising additional capital.

Ro

... See more

For early-stage investing, I believe that the small flat partnership is the best structure if the goal is to produce high return on capital funds. Here are some reasons why this model is superior for early-stage investing:- At the early stage, investors must bet on teams and ideas that have not been proven. The biggest winners almost always come fr... See more

But I thought a better way of thinking about how we manage our portfolios is to think about it as a funnel. If we do 36–40 deals in a Seed Fund, somewhere between 25–40% would likely see big up-rounds within the first 12–24 months. This translates to about 12–15 investments.

This has a significant impact on the competitive advantages of a firm in the market as it scales. When party rounds were the standard course for smaller seed firms, connections were the scarce skill set, enabling access to deals led by other reputable firms. As these funds have become larger and rounds have become increasingly tighter, conviction b... See more

9. Fund strategy: target fund size, average check size, carry & management fees