At a recent event was recently asked about investment outcomes for venture capitalists. I didn’t have any recent data, so I said that VCs generally expect that 1/3 of their investments will see great returns, 1/3 will see modest or no returns, and 1/3 will not be profitable.
VC Fred Wilson as Union Square Ventures recently analyzed his career in venture capital and posted his results. He’s got an enviable record of only 20% of deals failing to deliver, and more than 1/3 delivering a greater than 5x return.
Fred’s not into biotech, so I’d be hesitant about applying these numbers to biotechnology investing, and I’d be interested to see what the trends are in biotech VC.