SCOOP: Fundraising Documents Reveal IVP Quietly Raising $1.8 Billion, Boasting 31.1% Net IRR Since Firm's Inception
The firm's 2015 fund has returned 2.0x DPI to investors, making it a top quartile fund
IVP is out raising $1.8 billion for its 19th flagship fund, Newcomer has learned.
Institutional Venture Partners is telling prospective limited partners that the firm has generated a 31.1% net internal rate of return since its founding in 1980.
The firm — which is based in Silicon Valley but invests globally — regularly produces above-average venture capital funds, according to confidential fundraising materials obtained by Newcomer. The firm’s recent funds are in the top half and sometimes in the top quartile of venture capital funds — but none fall in the top 5%.
A $1.8 billion fundraise would bring the firm back to its 2021 fund size, after dropping to $1.6 billion in 2024.
The firm is hoping to command premium economics, asking for 2% management fees for the first year and 2.25% for a number of years thereafter. IVP is asking for 25% carry, stepping up to 30% carry once a 2.5x return hurdle is met. The general partner commitment is 3% of the fund’s total commitments.
IVP’s best fund performance came way back in 1996 when it returned 6.7x net DPI to investors, with an IRR of 94.5%.
Since 2010, the firm has topped out at 2.0x DPI with its 2015 vintage fund. That fund has a 22.7% IRR as of the end of March.
Cambridge Associates, which benchmarks venture capital funds, puts that 2015 fund’s IRR in the top quartile for that vintage — though the performance falls well behind the top 5% of funds in that vintage, which stand at 34.3% IRR.
IVP’s 2018 fund is currently being held at 1.9x TVPI, putting it in the top half but not top quartile of venture capital funds in that vintage, according to data from Cambridge Associates obtained by Newcomer.
The firm’s 2021 fund is currently being held at 1.7x net TVPI. That puts its fund in the top quartile of venture capital funds. (However, the fund has only returned 0.02x in net DPI, putting it in the top half of VC funds but not top quartile.)
In 2021, during the pandemic frenzy, IVP made the shrewd move of returning far more money to investors than it asked them to fork over for new investments, distributing $2.5 billion while asking investors for $855 million in capital calls.
The firm’s 2024 fund is currently being held at 1.2x net TVPI. That puts its fund in the top half but not the top quartile of venture funds in that vintage by TVPI.
While the firm boasts a major investment in Anthropic, it is not one of Anthropic’s largest shareholders. And it appears to have missed OpenAI and SpaceX, two of the biggest performers of this moment.
The firm highlights investments in Perplexity, Baseten, ClickHouse, Chainguard, and Abridge among others.
The firm describes what it calls its second generation — which spanned vintages from 2000 to 2013 — in muted terms. IVP tells prospective investors, “While IVP X achieved top-quartile performance, this generation of funds primarily informed the firm’s investment discipline, focus on venture-aligned business models, and approach to generational transition — foundations that supported the firm’s third generation.”
That period features a fund with 1.1x DPI and another with 1.2x DPI.
Despite all the talk of disruption in the startup ecosystem, venture brands have been surprisingly resilient, managing to weather years of humdrum returns only to reinvent themselves with new leaders.
Newcomer subscribers can read select newsworthy slides from IVP’s investor deck.
IVP did not respond to requests for comment on this story.