Young investors should prioritize achieving liquidity, even on smaller wins. These exits act as a 'report card' for Limited Partners, proving the VC can manage a full investment cycle. This track record of returning capital is a crucial career milestone that demonstrates fiduciary responsibility.
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In venture capital, an investor's reputation is constantly on the line. A successful exit in one fund doesn't satisfy the LPs of a subsequent fund. This creates relentless pressure to consistently perform, as you're only as good as your last hit and can never rest on past achievements.
Limited Partners should resist pressuring VCs for early exits to lock in DPI. The best companies compound value at incredible rates, making it optimal to hold winners. Instead, LPs should manage portfolio duration and liquidity by building a balanced portfolio of early-stage, growth, and secondary fund investments.
The old VC mindset of "let your winners run" and waiting for an IPO is gone. Today's GPs must act as fiduciaries by creating liquidity plans, proactively orchestrating secondary sales, and navigating complex buyout deals with partial rollovers to generate returns for LPs.
Despite the focus on markups and paper gains, top VCs believe the ultimate measure of a fund's success is returning cash to investors (DPI). This focus on liquidity is so critical that even a young fund should signal its commitment by distributing cash from early, minor exits.
A simple framework to evaluate a VC's skill is the four 'D's'. They need proprietary Deal Flow, the ability to make good Decisions (initial investment), the conviction to Double Down on winners, and the discipline to generate Distributions (returns) for LPs.
The strongest signal a VC can receive is when a founder they've backed asks to become a Limited Partner, especially after an exit. It proves the VC's value far exceeded the capital provided, demonstrating deep trust and authentic partnership.
Lara Banks of Mechanic Capital passed on a successful fund because she couldn't verbalize the repeatable 'intangibles' driving their returns. LPs must be able to understand and explain a VC's process for generating returns, not just see past luck, before committing capital to a fund.
In frothy markets with multi-billion dollar valuations, a key learned behavior from 2021 is for VCs to sell 10-20% of their stake during a large funding round. This provides early liquidity and distributions (DPI) to LPs, who are grateful for the cash back, and de-risks the fund's position.
LPs have a binary focus: cash-on-cash returns. As long as a VC fund is consistently distributing multiples back to them (high DPI), they are less likely to question the fund's strategy. This "what have you done for me lately" attitude is key to securing re-investment in future funds.
When a portfolio company is public, liquid, and highly appreciated, some VCs distribute shares directly to their Limited Partners (LPs). This tactic returns value while allowing each LP to decide whether to hold for further upside or sell for immediate cash, effectively offloading the hold/sell decision.
