i've found that for most early-stage VCs, looking at the overall % of round-to-round progressions on their entire portfolio may sometimes be a more revealing metric than just looking at the top performers (which might just be lucky, or unlucky).
while i agree it's important to show standardized metrics (especially in later years, 5-10), in the first few years what i really care about is what % of your seed deals made it to Series A and B, not so much whether you got lucky and 1 of your deals turned out to be Uber or Coinbase.
if someone shows me an average "hit rate" in their first 4-5 years from seed to Series B that's over 30% (ie, >50% of your seed deals got to Series A, and over 1/2 got from A->B), then i'm paying a lot more attention.
Really good point -- there's a few additional metrics like what you mentioned on follow-on rate, how much of the round you're able to access, what role you played in the round, digging into underlying operating metrics, etc. -- I agree with you that the analysis of a VC earlier in their firm growth should include some these additional metrics not mentioned in this post
great stuff.
i've found that for most early-stage VCs, looking at the overall % of round-to-round progressions on their entire portfolio may sometimes be a more revealing metric than just looking at the top performers (which might just be lucky, or unlucky).
while i agree it's important to show standardized metrics (especially in later years, 5-10), in the first few years what i really care about is what % of your seed deals made it to Series A and B, not so much whether you got lucky and 1 of your deals turned out to be Uber or Coinbase.
if someone shows me an average "hit rate" in their first 4-5 years from seed to Series B that's over 30% (ie, >50% of your seed deals got to Series A, and over 1/2 got from A->B), then i'm paying a lot more attention.
Really good point -- there's a few additional metrics like what you mentioned on follow-on rate, how much of the round you're able to access, what role you played in the round, digging into underlying operating metrics, etc. -- I agree with you that the analysis of a VC earlier in their firm growth should include some these additional metrics not mentioned in this post
This is great insight thanks Dave. Useful to have a 'hit rate' number to compare to.
Do you have the template to share? That would be amazing!
Where can i get a the SOI template?
This is super helpful! Thank you for putting it together.