Six Myths About Venture Capitalists

by Diane Mulcahy 

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin: We celebrate these entrepreneurs for their successes, and often equally extol the venture capitalists who backed their start-ups and share in their glory. Well-known VC firms such as Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia have cultivated a branded mystique around their ability to find and finance the most successful young companies. Forbes identifies the top individual VCs on its Midas List, implicitly crediting them with a mythical magic touch for investing. The story of venture capital appears to be a compelling narrative of bold investments and excess returns.

The reality looks very different. Behind the anecdotes about Apple, Facebook, and Google are numbers showing that many more venture-backed start-ups fail than succeed. And VCs themselves aren’t much better at generating returns. For more than a decade the stock markets have outperformed most of them, and since 1999 VC funds on average have barely broken even.

The VC industry wouldn’t exist without entrepreneurs, yet entrepreneurs often feel as if they’re in the backseat when it comes to dealing with VCs. For someone who’s starting (or thinking of starting) a company, the myths surrounding venture capital can be powerful. In this article I will challenge some common ones in order to help company founders develop a more realistic sense of the industry and what it offers.

Myth 1: Venture Capital Is the Primary Source of Start-Up Funding
Venture capital financing is the exception, not the norm, among start-ups. Historically, only a tiny percentage (fewer than 1%) of U.S. companies have raised capital from VCs. And the industry is contracting: After peaking in the late 1990s, the number of active VC firms fell from 744 to 526 in the decade 2001–2011, and the amount of venture capital raised was just under $19 billion in 2011, down from $39 billion in 2001, according to the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

But less venture capital doesn’t mean less start-up capital. Non-VC sources of financing are growing rapidly and giving entrepreneurs many more choices than in the past. Angel investors—affluent individuals who invest smaller amounts of capital at an earlier stage than VCs do—fund more than 16 times as many companies as VCs do, and their share is growing. In 2011 angels invested more than $22 billion in approximately 65,000 companies, whereas venture capitalists invested about $28 billion in about 3,700 companies. AngelList, an online platform that connects start-ups with angel capital, is one example of the enormous growth in angel financing. Since it launched, in 2010, more than 2,000 companies have raised capital using the platform, and start-ups now raise more than $10 million a month there. (Disclosure: The Kauffman Foundation is an investor in AngelList.)

Another new source of start-up investment is crowdfunding, whereby entrepreneurs raise small amounts of capital from large numbers of people in exchange for nonequity rewards such as products from the newly funded company. Kickstarter reports that more than 18,000 projects raised nearly $320 million through its platform in 2012—triple the amount raised in 2011. Passage of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act last year promises to support even faster growth by allowing crowdfunders to invest in exchange for equity and by expanding the pool of investors who can participate. 

Myth 2: VCs Take a Big Risk When They Invest in Your Start-Up
VCs are often portrayed as risk takers who back bold new ideas. True, they take a lot of risk with their investors’ capital—but very little with their own. In most VC funds the partners’ own money accounts for just 1% of the total. The industry’s revenue model, long investment cycle, and lack of visible performance data make VCs less accountable for their performance than most other professional investors. If a VC firm invests in your start-up, it will be rooting for you to succeed. But it will probably do just fine financially even if you fail.

Why? Because the standard VC fund charges an annual fee of 2% on committed capital over the life of the fund—usually 10 years—plus a percentage of the profits when firms successfully exit, usually by being acquired or going public. So a firm that raised a $1 billion fund and charged a 2% fee would receive a fixed fee stream of $20 million a year to cover expenses and compensation. VC firms raise new funds about every three or four years, so let’s say that three years into the first fund, the firm raised a second $1 billion fund. That would generate an additional $20 million in fees, for a total of $40 million annually. These cumulative and guaranteed management fees insulate VC partners from poor returns because much of their compensation comes from fees. Many partners take home compensation in the seven figures regardless of the fund’s investment performance. Most entrepreneurs have no such safety net.

Other investment professionals often face far greater performance pressure. Consider mutual fund managers, whose fund performance is reported daily, whose investors can withdraw money at any time, and who are often replaced for under performance. VC performance is ultimately judged at the end of a fund’s 10-year life, so venture capitalists are free from the level of accountability that’s common in other investment realms. They take on less personal risk than angel investors or crowdfunders, who use their own capital. And all investors take fewer risks than most entrepreneurs, who put much of their net worth and all of their earning capacity into their start-ups. 

Myth 3: Most VCs Offer Great Advice and Mentoring

A common VC pitch to entrepreneurs is that the firm brings much more than money to the table: It offers experience, operational and industry expertise, a broad network of relevant contacts, a range of services for start-ups, and a strong track record of successful investing.

In some cases those nonmonetary resources really are valuable. But VCs vary tremendously—both as firms and as individuals—in how much effort they put into advising and assisting portfolio companies. Among those who do mentor their CEOs, ability and the quality of advice can differ widely. There are no solid data about the industry’s delivery on this mentoring promise. But if you asked the CEOs of 100 VC-funded companies how helpful their VCs are, some would say they’re fabulous, some would say they’re active but not a huge help, and some would say they do little beyond writing checks. This last group isn’t necessarily bad, of course: Some CEOs may be happy to skip the mentoring and just take the cash. But for founders who have bought into the idea that VCs provide lots of value-added help, it can be a source of great disappointment.

The best way to determine whether a VC firm or partner brings resources other than capital to the table is to conduct your own due diligence, just as you’d do a thorough reference check on a key hire. Talk with the CEOs of the firm’s other portfolio companies and ask if the partner is accessible, how much he or she adds to boardroom discussion, and whether the CEO has received constructive help in dealing with company problems. Ask about resources the firm offers—PR, recruiting, and so forth—and whether those have been useful.

Some questions you should ask the VC firm directly, such as: Whom does it intend to put on your board? Is the person a partner or an associate? Does the person have any experience (or any other portfolio companies) in your industry? On how many other boards does he or she serve? Asking such questions may seem like common sense, but it’s shocking how few company founders actually make the necessary calls before signing up for a long-term relationship with a VC. If part of what makes a firm attractive is that it offers expertise, mentoring, and services, the entrepreneur needs to confirm that both the firm and the partner have a track record of delivering them. 

Myth 4: VCs Generate Spectacular Returns
Last year my colleagues at the Kauffman Foundation and I published a widely read report, “We Have Met the Enemy...and He Is Us,” about the venture capital industry and its returns. We found that the overall performance of the industry is poor. VC funds haven’t significantly outperformed the public markets since the late 1990s, and since 1997 less cash has been returned to VC investors than they have invested. A tiny group of top-performing firms do generate great “venture rates of return”: at least twice the capital invested, net of fees. We don’t know definitively which firms are in that group, because performance data are not generally available and are not consistently reported. The average fund, however, breaks even or loses money.

We analyzed the Kauffman Foundation’s experience investing in nearly 100 VC funds over 20 years. We found that only 20 of our funds outperformed the markets by the 3% to 5% annually that we expect to compensate us for the fees and illiquidity we incur by investing in private rather than public equity. Even worse, 62 of our 100 funds failed to beat the returns available from a small-cap public index.

Venture capital investments are generally perceived as high-risk and high-reward. The data in our report reveal that although investors in VC take on high fees, illiquidity, and risk, they rarely reap the reward of high returns. Entrepreneurs who are distressed when VCs decline to fund their ventures need only review the performance data to see that VCs as a group have no Midas touch for investing.

Myth 5: In VC, Bigger Is Better

Venture capital in the United States began as a cottage industry, notable in the early years for investments in companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Apple. In 1990, 100 VC firms were actively investing, with slightly less than $30 billion under management, according to the NVCA. During that era venture capital generated strong, above-market returns, and performance by any measure was good. What happened? During the peak of the internet boom, in 2000, the number of active firms grew to more than 1,000, and assets under management exceeded $220 billion. VC didn’t scale well. As in most asset classes, when the money flooded in, returns fell, and venture capital has not yet recovered. The number of firms and the amount of capital have declined since the boom, though they are both still far above the levels of the early and middle 1990s.

What’s true for the industry is also true for individual funds: Bigger isn’t better. Company founders often feel that signing a deal with a large VC firm lends cachet, just as MBA students may get special pleasure from being offered a job by a big, well-known employer. But industry and academic studies show that fund performance declines as fund size increases above $250 million. We found that the VC funds larger than $400 million in Kauffman’s portfolio generally failed to provide attractive returns: Just four out of 30 outperformed a publicly traded small-cap index fund. 

Myth 6: VCs Are Innovators
It’s ironic that VC firms position themselves as supporters, financers, and even instigators of innovation, yet the industry itself has been devoid of innovation for the past 20 years. Venture capital has seen plenty of changes over time—more funds, more money, bigger funds, declining returns—but funds are structured, capital is raised, and partners are paid just as they were two decades ago. Any innovation in financing start-ups, such as crowdfunding and platforms like AngelList and SecondMarket, has come from outside the VC industry. 

The story of venture capital is changing. Entrepreneurs have more choices for financing their companies, shifting the historical balance of power that has too long tilted too far toward VCs. Entrepreneurs will enjoy a different view as they move from the backseat into the driver’s seat in negotiating with VCs. An emerging group of “VC 2.0” firms are going back to raising small funds and focusing on generating great returns rather than large fees. And the industry’s persistent underperformance is finally causing institutional investors to think twice before investing in venture capital. As a result, VCs will continue to play a significant, but most likely smaller, role in channeling capital to disruptive start-ups.

Diane Mulcahy, a former venture capitalist, is the director of private equity for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, an adjunct lecturer in the entrepreneurship division at Babson College, and an Eisenhower Fellow.  

Why An Equity Crowdfunding Site Could Become The Largest Marketplace In The World

Ryan Caldbeck,

What do Airbnb, Etsy, OpenTable, Uber, and Kickstarter have in common? Well, to begin with, each of them are relatively young. Each of them also followed  the heavyweights Amazon and Ebay, and each of them share something else in common:

Their success stems from the simple fact that each one removed friction in a market by aggregating supply and demand in a user-friendly way. And there is something else: Each of these platforms have reaped the massive benefits of network effects—that is, as more people use the platforms, more people want to be on the platforms. All of this leads to improved quality of goods/services, which in turn leads to dominance. Competitors are left behind, whether online (Kickstarter, for example, was not the first crowdfunding site.), or offline.

While these now well-known marketplaces have already gained significant scale, I believe that the equity crowdfunding marketplace that ultimately comes out on top could be even larger than many of the great marketplaces of today. To understand why, it’s useful to look at an example.  Lets take some stats we have from CircleUp, an equity crowdfunding site, and OpenTable, the world’s leading online reservations marketplace.  According to OpenTable’s 2012 SEC filings, the Company seated approximately 120 million diners in 2012, driven through its own platform, through affiliates (i.e., Yelp) or directly through the restaurant (i.e., on the restaurant’s site using OpenTable). If you divide OpenTable’s $91 million in reservation revenue by its 120 million consumers, that comes out to $0.76 per consumer. Not bad for many internet businesses.

Now let’s look at equity crowdfunding. I’ll use CircleUp as an example, and I welcome others in the comments section below.  On our platform, investors can invest anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per investment (the minimum investment is determined by the entrepreneur on a deal by deal basis). Additionally, across the 21 companies that we have helped raise more then $21 million for, we have seen a large portion of capital come from “repeat investors”—that is, those who have made multiple investments on the platform.  Our average investment depends on the deal but is typically five figures—for this post lets assume $10,000.  If the average investor only invests $10,000 per year on CircleUp (note this is not the actual average, just a hypothetical), it would be worth somewhere between $500 and $1,000 in revenue to CircleUp (our fee structure is based on the size of the raise). Given the repeat investment rate, investors are often worth several thousands dollars per year to CircleUp.

There are currently 8.6 million households that qualify as accredited investors, but only a few hundred thousand that today consider themselves angel investors.  And the amount invested into private companies ($50 Billion in the form of equity) hasn’t changed in a decade. Why isn’t it growing? How could it, given that there has been no innovation (until the JOBS Act and equity crowdfunding) for 80 years? Before platforms like CircleUp existed, investors would have to spend time sourcing quality deal flow, which can (and often is) a full time job in itself. If you believe these marketplaces have the chance to supplement other parts of private investing (more broadly- Reg D investments), then it is important to note that the entire Reg D market is $1.3 trillion. While our sample size is still small and equity crowdfunding is in the first inning of what we hope is a long game, when I look at the average size per transaction on CircleUp + the “repeat purchase” rate + the total amount of investable capital, the total market potential for equity crowdfunding is many times that of any online marketplace out there today.

Now here is why I’m wrong. By a lot of measures, equity crowdfunding may have the dynamics of great marketplaces.  It is attacking a huge market that has massive inefficiencies.  In the case of consumer and retail, CircleUp’s focus, there are 700,000 consumer and retail companies with $1M-10M in revenue- almost all of which will need to raise equity to grow at some point.  By most accounts, the average company takes 12 months to raise money offline, as compared to 2-3 months on CircleUp.  There are also huge reasons an online marketplace will make private investing, and fundraising, a much better experience than the status quo: less travel, more efficient deal screening and investor screening, increased transparency and data, etc. Naturally, these advantages should  expand the size of the current market even more.

All of this is great. Unfortunately,  equity crowdfunding won’t capture that trillion dollar market that’s out there. Why? First, because equity crowdfunding is not a better experience for all forms of Reg D offerings.  That $1.3T market mentioned above? $1.1T are pooled investment vehicles. Sure, many of them will be replaced by online investing platforms, but many actually do add value and won’t be cut out.  Equity crowdfunding will blossom when the market is broken, but that’s not the case for all private investing.  For tech investing, as an example, it’s simply not broken.  Any decent tech entrepreneur can raise money on Sand Hill Road.  In consumer and retail, CircleUp’s focus, the status quo is broken- which is why we are growing so rapidly (The number of investors on CircleUp making investments—compared to the total number during the previous 15 months of our existence—grew by 75% in just the last 90 days).

The second reason I’m wrong, and why equity crowdfunding won’t be the largest, is because of frequency of investment.  The purchase cycle in private investing for most investors is infrequent. Successful angels typically make 7-10 investments, but that can occur over several years.  So while each individual investment is worth hundreds, or thousands, of dollars to an equity crowdfunding site in revenue, that investor may only invest a few times a year. That’s fine from a revenue standpoint, but it makes it more difficult to build word-of-mouth customer growth.

I’m not sure if I’m right or wrong.  There are quality arguments on both sides. I do firmly believe, however, that equity crowdfunding will massively disrupt the existing broken markets.  And that should be a great thing for the investors and entrepreneurs who use the platforms in those markets.

The Basics of Crowdfunding

What it is: Crowdfunding is about persuading individuals to each give you a small donation -- $10, $50, $100, maybe more. Once you get thousands of donors, you have some serious cash on hand.

This has all become possible in recent years thanks to a proliferation of websites that allow nonprofits, artists, musicians -- and yes, businesses -- to raise money. This is the social media version of fundraising.

There are more than 600 crowdfunding platforms around the world, with fundraising reaching billions of dollars annually, according to the research firm Massolution.

How it works: The most common type of crowdfunding fundraising is using sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo variety, where donations are sought in return for special rewards. That could mean free product or even a chance to be involved in designing the product or service.

It is also possible to use crowdfunding to assemble loans and royalty financing. The site LendingClub, for example, allows members to directly invest in and borrow from each other, with the claim that eliminating the banking middleman means "both sides can win" in the transactions. Royalty financing sites appear to be more rare, but the idea is to link business owners with investors who lend money for a guaranteed percentage of revenues for whatever the business is selling.

The holy grail is to sell company shares or ownership stakes in the company on crowdfunding sites, because it could be like a mini-IPO without the traditional hurdles. In the past, this has only been legal with accredited investors, people who each have more than $1 million in net worth or more than $200,000 in annual income.

The good news is that the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 allows stock to be sold to the general public over crowdfunding sites, but as of mid-2013, the SEC was still hammering out the rules.

Upside: Crowdfunding provides another strategy for startups or early stage companies ready to take it to the next level -- such as rolling out a product or service. Before, a business owner was subject to the caprices of individual angel investors or bank loan officers. Now it is possible to pitch a business plan to the masses.

A successful crowdfunding round not only provides your business with needed cash, but creates a base of customers who feel as though they have a stake in the business' success.


Downside: If you don’t have an engaging story to tell, then your crowdfunding bid could be a flop. Sites such as Kickstarter don’t collect money until a fundraising goal is reached, so that’s still a lot of wasted time that could have been spent doing other things to grow the business.

It could be even worse if you meet your goal but then realize you underestimated how much money you needed. A business risks getting sued if it promises customers products or perks in return for donations, and then fails to deliver.

There is also an argument to be made that angel investors and even bank officers provide more than just money. They provide entrepreneurs with needed advice. Business owners miss out on such mentorship when they ignore traditional investors and turn to the crowd.

Here are more factors that can better ensure a successful crowdfunding campaign:
● Have at least a small network of enthusiastic friends and family willing to help get the ball rolling by giving and urging others to give.
● If you’re giving out perks in return for money, make sure the perks are cool.
● Present a serious business plan and an explanation of why the money will take your enterprise to the next level.
● Demonstrate that you have your own skin in the game because of the personal funds you have already poured into the business.
● Include a video pitch and keep it short and concise, with a call to action.
● PBS includes different rewards for different levels of giving; so should you.
● Be prepared to essentially live online, staying active on social media sites, until the crowdfunding campaign is complete.

5 Rules For Crowdfunding Success From The Queen Of Multitasking Underwear (You Read That Right)

Set your goal below the actual amount you want to reach. And more counterintuitive crowdfunding wisdom from Joanna Griffiths, the woman behind Knix Wear.

Technology probably isn't the first thing most people think of when they think of underwear.

Joanna Griffiths is not most people. While studying at INSEAD, one of the world's largest graduate business schools, Griffiths saw an opportunity to create a product that did more than the existing options on the market. "Thanks to technology, almost everything has evolved, everything but our underwear," she says. "We created a product truly designed with women's needs in mind: underwear that looks great, fits great, and has technology built in to eradicate odor and wick away and absorb moisture."

I knew that it would also give us the opportunity to gain invaluable customer feedback--before the product had been made. 

Griffiths needed a way to fund her new venture, Knix Wear. She had interviewed hundreds of women about the idea while doing her MBA, identifying demand for a stylish lingerie line for women who exercised intensely or experienced light incontinence, and she decided that crowdfunding would be the ultimate test. "People had liked the idea, but would they actually pay for it?" says Griffiths. "I knew that it would also give us the opportunity to gain invaluable customer feedback--before the product had been made."

The campaign was a success, surpassing the $40,000 goal (by an extra $20,000). During the Indiegogo experience, Griffiths also learned some crucial crowdfunding lessons.

1. Seek out best practices

Before you start your crowdfunding campaign, Griffiths suggests that it's important to study others who have done it well. For her, there were a handful of examples of how to do things right. She drew inspiration from how the Ministry of Supply men's shirt campaign described their technology; she looked to the Saint Harridan campaign for its storytelling abilities; and she liked how the footwear project, Forus, positioned their wholesale packs.

2. Be prepared to hustle

No matter how much experience you have in the crowdfunding space, it requires a strategic approach to reach--and exceed--your goal. From media lists to ambassadors, Griffiths recommends that you plan ahead as much as possible. This means contacting your supporters before you launch to firm up their promotion and participation, and also developing a thorough marketing plan.

3. Adapt quickly to survive

For many in the crowdfunding world, there are no second chances. Griffiths shares how at just two weeks into their campaign they realized things weren't going as planned and they needed to adapt, quickly. "It was extremely difficult to let go of our preconceived notions and admit that we had launched incorrectly," she says. "But that is part of the beauty of crowdfunding," she explains. "Listen to your customers, as it could prevent you from making costly mistakes later on." Thanks to listening closely to feedback, they re-shot their promo video and repositioned their product to get better results.

4. Make your own rules

While it's key to study best practices, it's also important to seek out your own rules, as crowdfunding is a relatively new space and many best practices are still being defined. During the Knix Wear campaign, Griffiths received an email from a major retailer, HBC, saying they wanted to be her first retail partner and were going to pre-purchase product via the Indiegogo campaign. "We were the first campaign to have a major retailer pre-order through crowdfunding and we got them by thinking outside of the box. If we had only looked to what had been done before, we never would have reached that milestone." One of the perks that helped to seal this deal was the $800 retailer multi-pack featured as part of the campaign, which includes 48 pairs of Knix Wear high-tech knickers (retail value $1,600). 

5. Get tactical and practical

Start your campaign on Monday and end your campaign on a Friday, says Griffiths. It will help you to maintain your momentum. She also recommends that you set your goal below the actual amount you want to reach. "It sounds counterintuitive but people like to contribute to winning campaigns, so if your goal is achievable and you hit it early on, you’ll be more likely to hit your stretch target."

KnixWear is now shipping product to its 518 pre-order supporters and planning for a future in stores around the world. 

Amber Mac

Amber Mac is a bestselling author, TV host, speaker, and strategist. She has worked as a technology TV host with tech guru Leo Laporte on G4TechTV and currently co-hosts a popular show on Laporte's TWiT.tv network. In June 2010, Amber wrote a book about how to use social media to build your brand. Power Friending was published by Portfolio/Penguin in New York.

Finance tips for all business sizes and sectors

Rick Spence 

Looking for a bank loan? A $500,000 equity infusion? Or would you like to crowdsource some cash off the Internet? A one-day financial forum staged by Enterprise Toronto last week offered fundraising tips for entrepreneurs of all sizes and sectors.

The No. 1 takeaway: Raising capital ain’t easy. On a panel representing the full spectrum of financial resources, the banker, community-fund manager, crowdfunding consultant, angel investor and venture capitalist all agreed that the biggest mistake prospective clients make is thinking the process will be easier than it is. Yes, these funders want to do business with you. But they have terms, standards, qualifications and limits you have to meet, and that will require preparation, analysis and clear thinking on your part.

But here’s the good news: if this process were easy, all your competitors could get funding, too. So be glad that growth capital is available only to people like you, with the smarts, vision and track record to earn it.

As keynote speaker Jacoline Loewen told the more than 100 forum attendees, the growth projections and marketing plans you prepare for funders’ scrutiny represent  essential thinking about your business. Even if you don’t score capital with every meeting, going through this process will strengthen your business and make you that much more attractive to the next lender or investor you meet.

Here are some key takeaways from the sessions I attended:

Keep up! There are new forms of financing coming on stream all the time, to address specific needs or market niches. For instance, this was the first time I had seen a financial panel that included microloans and crowdfunding — two new and very different sources of capital for those who have trouble raising conventional financing.

Can’t get a bank loan for your startup? Ontario’s Trillium Foundation bankrolls a number of community funds that provide low-cost microloans to qualifying entrepreneurs. (In general, you should own 51% of your business, it’s helpful to have taken some business courses, and you must use the loan to expand your business rather than pay off debt.) Panelist Michael Scotland of Toronto’s Access Community Capital Fund said first-time microloans are available for as much as $5,000, at interest rates just 1.5 percentage points above prime. (There’s also a 5% administration fee.) If you pay off your first loan, Access may provide subsequent loans up to $10,000.

Sweating over a business plan to impress your banker? Check first to see if he or she will read it. Alex Ciancio of TD Business Banking noted that most small-business lending decisions are based on your credit-worthiness — not your business plan. Taking good care of your personal credit history is one of the most important things you do to help your business.

Do you have collateral? Many entrepreneurs seeking bank loans are surprised to be offered interest rates three or four points over prime. That’s because most rate-related advertising refers to mortgages or credit lines, where borrowers put up their homes or other assets as security. Ciancio noted that lower-cost business loans are available if you have the collateral to secure them.

Look closer to home. Although no moms or dads were represented on the panel, several participants noted that love money — from family and friends — is often the best first step for entrepreneurs. “It’s usually the cheapest and most flexible money you will ever raise,”  Ciancio said.

Relatives and pals can also get in on crowdfunding. This is where you create a pitch on a crowdfunding website (such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo) asking people to support your business project, usually in return for receiving equivalent value in products or personal services. “This is a good place for family and friends to step up,” noted consultant Christopher Charlesworth of HiveWire. “If your mother won’t invest in you, why would anyone else?”

Crowdfunding capital isn’t free. You have to provide sufficient value to attract supporters (in Canada, crowd-sourced capital is not equity or debt, it’s essentially a donation). You also have to learn how to tell your story, Charlesworth says, because that’s what people invest in. Having amassed a database on North American crowdfunding activity, HiveWire has found the average crowdfunding project raises $7,000.

Tell a compelling story. Venture capital and angel money are for the few companies whose growth trajectory has the potential to give investors a return of 700% to 1,000%, in about five years. Once again, your challenge is getting the story right. VCs and angels receive many more proposals than they can fund, so a compelling Executive Summary is the best way to get their attention.

Again, cash comes with a catch. Several attendees asked why investors need “exits” within five or six years. Why can’t they just stay invested in good companies? Angel investor Gerard Buckley, CEO of Jaguar Capital, noted that “an investment isn’t a marriage, it’s just a relationship.” While several CEOs seemed concerned about their need to sell the company so that venture investors can get their exit, VC Bram Sugarman of OMERS Ventures said founders can stay on if they want. Although if their companies have had anywhere near the success they were hoping for, the founder probably won’t be able to raise enough cash to buy out the investor.
Still, it’s a nice problem to have.

Six Myths About Venture Capitalists

by Diane Mulcahy

 

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin: We celebrate these entrepreneurs for their successes, and often equally extol the venture capitalists who backed their start-ups and share in their glory. Well-known VC firms such as Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia have cultivated a branded mystique around their ability to find and finance the most successful young companies. Forbes identifies the top individual VCs on its Midas List, implicitly crediting them with a mythical magic touch for investing. The story of venture capital appears to be a compelling narrative of bold investments and excess returns.

The reality looks very different. Behind the anecdotes about Apple, Facebook, and Google are numbers showing that many more venture-backed start-ups fail than succeed. And VCs themselves aren’t much better at generating returns. For more than a decade the stock markets have outperformed most of them, and since 1999 VC funds on average have barely broken even.

The VC industry wouldn’t exist without entrepreneurs, yet entrepreneurs often feel as if they’re in the backseat when it comes to dealing with VCs. For someone who’s starting (or thinking of starting) a company, the myths surrounding venture capital can be powerful. In this article I will challenge some common ones in order to help company founders develop a more realistic sense of the industry and what it offers.

 

Myth 1: Venture Capital Is the Primary Source of Start-Up Funding
Venture capital financing is the exception, not the norm, among start-ups. Historically, only a tiny percentage (fewer than 1%) of U.S. companies have raised capital from VCs. And the industry is contracting: After peaking in the late 1990s, the number of active VC firms fell from 744 to 526 in the decade 2001–2011, and the amount of venture capital raised was just under $19 billion in 2011, down from $39 billion in 2001, according to the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

But less venture capital doesn’t mean less start-up capital. Non-VC sources of financing are growing rapidly and giving entrepreneurs many more choices than in the past. Angel investors—affluent individuals who invest smaller amounts of capital at an earlier stage than VCs do—fund more than 16 times as many companies as VCs do, and their share is growing. In 2011 angels invested more than $22 billion in approximately 65,000 companies, whereas venture capitalists invested about $28 billion in about 3,700 companies. AngelList, an online platform that connects start-ups with angel capital, is one example of the enormous growth in angel financing. Since it launched, in 2010, more than 2,000 companies have raised capital using the platform, and start-ups now raise more than $10 million a month there. (Disclosure: The Kauffman Foundation is an investor in AngelList.)

Another new source of start-up investment is crowdfunding, whereby entrepreneurs raise small amounts of capital from large numbers of people in exchange for nonequity rewards such as products from the newly funded company. Kickstarter reports that more than 18,000 projects raised nearly $320 million through its platform in 2012—triple the amount raised in 2011. Passage of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act last year promises to support even faster growth by allowing crowdfunders to invest in exchange for equity and by expanding the pool of investors who can participate.

 

Myth 2: VCs Take a Big Risk When They Invest in Your Start-Up
VCs are often portrayed as risk takers who back bold new ideas. True, they take a lot of risk with their investors’ capital—but very little with their own. In most VC funds the partners’ own money accounts for just 1% of the total. The industry’s revenue model, long investment cycle, and lack of visible performance data make VCs less accountable for their performance than most other professional investors. If a VC firm invests in your start-up, it will be rooting for you to succeed. But it will probably do just fine financially even if you fail.

Why? Because the standard VC fund charges an annual fee of 2% on committed capital over the life of the fund—usually 10 years—plus a percentage of the profits when firms successfully exit, usually by being acquired or going public. So a firm that raised a $1 billion fund and charged a 2% fee would receive a fixed fee stream of $20 million a year to cover expenses and compensation. VC firms raise new funds about every three or four years, so let’s say that three years into the first fund, the firm raised a second $1 billion fund. That would generate an additional $20 million in fees, for a total of $40 million annually. These cumulative and guaranteed management fees insulate VC partners from poor returns because much of their compensation comes from fees. Many partners take home compensation in the seven figures regardless of the fund’s investment performance. Most entrepreneurs have no such safety net.

Other investment professionals often face far greater performance pressure. Consider mutual fund managers, whose fund performance is reported daily, whose investors can withdraw money at any time, and who are often replaced for under performance. VC performance is ultimately judged at the end of a fund’s 10-year life, so venture capitalists are free from the level of accountability that’s common in other investment realms. They take on less personal risk than angel investors or crowdfunders, who use their own capital. And all investors take fewer risks than most entrepreneurs, who put much of their net worth and all of their earning capacity into their start-ups.

 

Myth 3: Most VCs Offer Great Advice and Mentoring

A common VC pitch to entrepreneurs is that the firm brings much more than money to the table: It offers experience, operational and industry expertise, a broad network of relevant contacts, a range of services for start-ups, and a strong track record of successful investing.

In some cases those nonmonetary resources really are valuable. But VCs vary tremendously—both as firms and as individuals—in how much effort they put into advising and assisting portfolio companies. Among those who do mentor their CEOs, ability and the quality of advice can differ widely. There are no solid data about the industry’s delivery on this mentoring promise. But if you asked the CEOs of 100 VC-funded companies how helpful their VCs are, some would say they’re fabulous, some would say they’re active but not a huge help, and some would say they do little beyond writing checks. This last group isn’t necessarily bad, of course: Some CEOs may be happy to skip the mentoring and just take the cash. But for founders who have bought into the idea that VCs provide lots of value-added help, it can be a source of great disappointment.

The best way to determine whether a VC firm or partner brings resources other than capital to the table is to conduct your own due diligence, just as you’d do a thorough reference check on a key hire. Talk with the CEOs of the firm’s other portfolio companies and ask if the partner is accessible, how much he or she adds to boardroom discussion, and whether the CEO has received constructive help in dealing with company problems. Ask about resources the firm offers—PR, recruiting, and so forth—and whether those have been useful.

Some questions you should ask the VC firm directly, such as: Whom does it intend to put on your board? Is the person a partner or an associate? Does the person have any experience (or any other portfolio companies) in your industry? On how many other boards does he or she serve? Asking such questions may seem like common sense, but it’s shocking how few company founders actually make the necessary calls before signing up for a long-term relationship with a VC. If part of what makes a firm attractive is that it offers expertise, mentoring, and services, the entrepreneur needs to confirm that both the firm and the partner have a track record of delivering them.

 

Myth 4: VCs Generate Spectacular Returns
Last year my colleagues at the Kauffman Foundation and I published a widely read report, “We Have Met the Enemy...and He Is Us,” about the venture capital industry and its returns. We found that the overall performance of the industry is poor. VC funds haven’t significantly outperformed the public markets since the late 1990s, and since 1997 less cash has been returned to VC investors than they have invested. A tiny group of top-performing firms do generate great “venture rates of return”: at least twice the capital invested, net of fees. We don’t know definitively which firms are in that group, because performance data are not generally available and are not consistently reported. The average fund, however, breaks even or loses money.

We analyzed the Kauffman Foundation’s experience investing in nearly 100 VC funds over 20 years. We found that only 20 of our funds outperformed the markets by the 3% to 5% annually that we expect to compensate us for the fees and illiquidity we incur by investing in private rather than public equity. Even worse, 62 of our 100 funds failed to beat the returns available from a small-cap public index.

Venture capital investments are generally perceived as high-risk and high-reward. The data in our report reveal that although investors in VC take on high fees, illiquidity, and risk, they rarely reap the reward of high returns. Entrepreneurs who are distressed when VCs decline to fund their ventures need only review the performance data to see that VCs as a group have no Midas touch for investing.

Myth 5: In VC, Bigger Is Better

Venture capital in the United States began as a cottage industry, notable in the early years for investments in companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Apple. In 1990, 100 VC firms were actively investing, with slightly less than $30 billion under management, according to the NVCA. During that era venture capital generated strong, above-market returns, and performance by any measure was good. What happened? During the peak of the internet boom, in 2000, the number of active firms grew to more than 1,000, and assets under management exceeded $220 billion. VC didn’t scale well. As in most asset classes, when the money flooded in, returns fell, and venture capital has not yet recovered. The number of firms and the amount of capital have declined since the boom, though they are both still far above the levels of the early and middle 1990s.

What’s true for the industry is also true for individual funds: Bigger isn’t better. Company founders often feel that signing a deal with a large VC firm lends cachet, just as MBA students may get special pleasure from being offered a job by a big, well-known employer. But industry and academic studies show that fund performance declines as fund size increases above $250 million. We found that the VC funds larger than $400 million in Kauffman’s portfolio generally failed to provide attractive returns: Just four out of 30 outperformed a publicly traded small-cap index fund.

 

Myth 6: VCs Are Innovators
It’s ironic that VC firms position themselves as supporters, financers, and even instigators of innovation, yet the industry itself has been devoid of innovation for the past 20 years. Venture capital has seen plenty of changes over time—more funds, more money, bigger funds, declining returns—but funds are structured, capital is raised, and partners are paid just as they were two decades ago. Any innovation in financing start-ups, such as crowdfunding and platforms like AngelList and SecondMarket, has come from outside the VC industry. 

The story of venture capital is changing. Entrepreneurs have more choices for financing their companies, shifting the historical balance of power that has too long tilted too far toward VCs. Entrepreneurs will enjoy a different view as they move from the backseat into the driver’s seat in negotiating with VCs. An emerging group of “VC 2.0” firms are going back to raising small funds and focusing on generating great returns rather than large fees. And the industry’s persistent underperformance is finally causing institutional investors to think twice before investing in venture capital. As a result, VCs will continue to play a significant, but most likely smaller, role in channeling capital to disruptive start-ups.

Diane Mulcahy, a former venture capitalist, is the director of private equity for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, an adjunct lecturer in the entrepreneurship division at Babson College, and an Eisenhower Fellow.