NVCA Today

The NVCA Benchmark Reporter online subscription database launched in early January and several NVCA member firms have already signed up. Powered by data from its new relationship with Cambridge Associates, the NVCA is able to offer comprehensive benchmark datasets and robust analysis capabilities previously unavailable to the GP community. The underlying cash flow information is from the Cambridge Associates database comprised of 1,281 venture funds formed from 1981 through 2009 with approximately $255.8 billion of committed capital. The fund-level cash flows are supplemented by underlying portfolio company funding and exit data from those funds. This new product is now the official performance database of the NVCA.

The online product is available to NVCA members as the result of an agreement between NVCA and Cambridge Associates signed in July 2009. NVCA is now posting vintage year level benchmarks on its website and a more detailed report is available on the NVCA members-only website. NVCA moved quickly to launch the online subscription product so members could use it for 2009 fund performance benchmarking, comparative industry sector assessment, and preparing for year-end LP reporting and upcoming fundraising.

Subscribing members will be able to benchmark their portfolio and portfolio companies for both external reporting and internal tracking and analysis in a variety of ways including:

• Create benchmarks for each of your funds by vintage year, fund size, etc.
• Compare your performance to peers using pooled return, mean, median, quartile, standard deviation, and ratio metrics
• Use the portfolio company analysis feature to calculate gross IRRs by sector and subsector
• Analyze the success of your portfolio companies by creating gross benchmarks based on such criteria as sector, country, US region, state, first funding year, whether realized, stage at first funding, and fund vintage year
• Create J-Curve analysis for your fund peer groups
• Benchmark your funds on either an inception-to-date or end-to-end basis --  users can run fund level periodic IRR returns allowing comparison on a one quarter, one year or multi year basis
• Use timely data, generally posted in final form 3 ½ months after quarter end with good sample significance
• Analyze sectors by return multiples and overall gross IRR

This is a members-only benefit as the NVCA Benchmark Reporter is available only to current NVCA members.

NVCA staff members are accepting appointments for online demos of the product. Please contact NVCA head of research, John Taylor at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information on previews and annual subscriptions.