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Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

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11–20 of 22 posts

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#11
In a VC portfolio there is little difference between a 0x or a 3x return. Virtually all the returns come from the handful of 100x returns that make the entire fund. All the other companies combined have little impact

Side note that the 3x return companies are the biggest headache to manage (founder feuds, recruiting another vp of sales, etc). The 0x and 100x companies are much easier

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#13
I don't think the $213M loss on FTX is going to impact anything. It's not a strategic amount of money to funds of that size.

I might refine the question along the lines of, do losses in a given fund put pressure on the GP's appointed board members in their other companies in the same vintage or with the same participating LP's - to cause the CEOs to align their strategies toward nearer term exits - and if that strategy shifts, how does it affect staff in those companies?

Though it's true that "companies aren't sold, they are bought," I could tell you how companies under different kinds of market pressures and investment structures tend to make product and engineering decisions and what those incentives do to the culture, but that's outside the scope of whether this particular loss creates enough systemic risk that it could ripple out into their other portfolio companies.

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#14
These large funds are pretty diverse, check out the letter Sequoia sent out to their LPs regarding FTX [1]. Sequoia's 150M cost basis for their FTX investment only accounts for 3% of the committed capital of the fund.

[1] https://twitter.com/sequoia/status/1590522718650499073

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#15
post #9

Side question I've been wondering: what was Sequoia, a well-respected VC, doing investing in companies that do nothing but enable people to trade speculative assets with no track record? I'm not so worried about Fundrise or Robinhood because those assets are at least useful or Masterworks because art has a track record. Maybe it's because prospective LPs had the same crypto fomo as retail speculators, but don't GPs a…

Sequoia is well respected because they invest and generate returns for their investors, not for displaying any kind of morals.

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#16
post #9

Side question I've been wondering: what was Sequoia, a well-respected VC, doing investing in companies that do nothing but enable people to trade speculative assets with no track record? I'm not so worried about Fundrise or Robinhood because those assets are at least useful or Masterworks because art has a track record. Maybe it's because prospective LPs had the same crypto fomo as retail speculators, but don't GPs a…

Sequoia is well respected because they invest and generate returns for their investors, not for displaying any kind of morals.

It's not the morals I'm wondering about; it's the viability of the businesses. Investing in one of these companies is hoping you can cash out before the bubble pops. At least if you invest in a boring SaaS company, when the bubble pops, you might still have a boring SaaS company on the road to profitability.

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sequoia is well respected because they invest and generate returns for their investors, not for displaying any kind of morals.

It's not the morals I'm wondering about; it's the viability of the businesses. Investing in one of these companies is hoping you can cash out before the bubble pops. At least if you invest in a boring SaaS company, when the bubble pops, you might still have a boring SaaS company on the road to profitability.

If an exchange isn't misappropriating customer funds, it doesn't matter if the bubble pops. They facilitate transactions and take a fee in return. As long as they have customers and don't blow money all over the place, they should be profitable.

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#18

Purely on intuition and no facts at all: my intuition is that it’s already baked into their risk profile. They don’t need to “make up for it.”

"Purely on intuition and no facts at all"

Sounds like you're ready for VC!

Re: Ask HN: When a VC loses money, how does that affect the rest of its portfolio?

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the morals I'm wondering about; it's the viability of the businesses. Investing in one of these companies is hoping you can cash out before the bubble pops. At least if you invest in a boring SaaS company, when the bubble pops, you might still have a boring SaaS company on the road to profitability.

If an exchange isn't misappropriating customer funds, it doesn't matter if the bubble pops. They facilitate transactions and take a fee in return. As long as they have customers and don't blow money all over the place, they should be profitable.

If crypto stops appreciating, won't transaction volume collapse? I guess the question is how much crypto use is real (I'm sure there's a better word) and how much is speculative.
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