????資金分別流向小型和大型風投公司

????就在三年前，還有人說有限合伙人“根本不會開具小面額支票”來為種子階段風投提供資金。最新動態是，種子階段已經被廣為接受，但問題是“我的種子基金有能力按既定比例為那些最終的贏家提供資金嗎？”簡單來說就是，如果你按450萬美元的融資前價值為打車服務商Uber公司提供了種子基金，而且你有權保持自己的股權份額，你當然希望繼續行駛投資權。在私募市場中填補這個缺口的競賽正在進行之中。

????目前種子基金占所有新設立基金的67%，是六年前占比的兩倍。雖然它們只占整個風投行業總資本的6%，這依然是一個重大的結構性變化。

????Money Bifurcating into Small & Large

????Just 3 years ago there was talk of LPs “not being able to write small enough checks” to fund seed-stage VCs. The new narrative is seed-stage is here to stay, but “will my seed funds be able to fund the prorata of their winners?” Stated simply — if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m pre-money valuation you certainly would want to exercise your right to continue investing if you had pro-rata rights. The race is on to plug this gap in the private markets.

????Seed funds now represent 67% of all funds being created now, which is up 100% from 6 years ago. And while it only represents 6% of the total capital of the VC industry — this is a meaningful shift in structure.

????另一方面，在過去幾年中大型基金變得更大，這大幅提高了風投行業的整合規模——目前在風投領域，66%的有限合伙人資金都集中在后期或完整周期風投公司手里，此類資金在2014年的規模可能達到170-200億美元。

????為什么會這樣？

????? 許多養老基金規模過大，無法進行小額投資，它們都愿意按0.5-1億美元的規模向其他基金提供資金。如果它們不希望自己在一只基金中的份額超過10%，相應的基金規模就應該在5-10億美元之間。

????? 基金中的基金（它們從大型養老基金、主權財富基金等基金那里融資，然后將這些資金分解成更小的單位）所銷售的經常是“渠道”。它們所說的其實是自己可以通過關系來投資紅杉資本（Sequoia）、基準資本（Benchmark）、格雷洛克（Greylock）、凱鵬華盈（Kleiner Perkins）和加速資本（Accel）等風投巨擘，而規模較大的基金往往無法實現直接投資。

????當然，找到過去5-7年中最佳“新興經理人”的難度要大得多，合廣投資（Union Square Ventures）、星火資本（Spark Capital）、首輪資本（First Round Capital）、真資本（True Ventures）、格雷克羅夫特（Greycroft）、晶圓集團（Foundry Group）和Thrive and Upfront Ventures等公司的表現都不錯。難點在于如果沒能進入前一兩輪融資，你就再也無法投入資金，原因是它們也會出現“超額申購”現象。

????走在前列的基金中基金意識到，它們的差異化源泉更多地在于把資金投入新出現的市場領跑者，而不是老牌風投公司，原因是大多數有歷史的基金中基金都有一定的老關系。

????最讓人困惑的數據是那些資金規模在1-5億美元之間的“傳統風投公司”。自2008-2009年“大衰退”以來，這些風投公司一直處于萎縮狀態，從獲得資金的風投公司數量以及此類風投公司的總資金規模來說都是這樣，這種情況似乎和成功的新興基金的崛起形成了鮮明對比。截至2014年，傳統風投公司的數量及其所獲資金在短短六年時間里減少了一半，原因是資金轉向了更早或更晚的投資階段。

????At the other end of the spectrum large funds have gotten even larger in the past few years which has massively increased the amount of consolidation in our industry as 66% of LP money into venture is now concentrated in late-stage or full-cycle VCs, which is likely $17-20bn in 2014.

????Why is this?

????? Many pension funds are simply too large to write small checks and favor the ability to write $50-100 million checks to funds. If you don’t want to be more than 10% of a fund that implies fund sizes in the $500 million-$1 billion range.

????? Fund of funds (who take money from large pensions, sovereign wealth funds, etc. and break it into smaller sizes) often sell “access.” What they’re really saying is that they have the relationships to be able to invest in Sequoia, Benchmark, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, etc. and the bigger funds often can’t get in directly.

????Of course it’s much harder to identify “emerging managers” who it turns out have been some of the best performers over the past 5-7 years such as Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, First Round Capital, True Ventures, Greycroft, Foundry Group, Thrive and Upfront Ventures. The challenge is that if you don’t get into the first 1-2 funds you don’t get in at all because they, too, become “over subscribed.”

????The pioneering fund of funds realize that their source of differentiation is much more about getting into the newer market leaders than the established venture capitals since most historic fund-of-funds have some level of old-line access.

????The most puzzling bit of data was that “traditional VC” — funds in the $100 million-$500 million range — seemed to be shrinking since the Great Recession in both numbers of VCs getting funded and in terms of total dollars in this class of VC and this seemed to fly in the face of the rise of successful emerging funds. By 2014, traditional VC would have halved in just 6 years in both number of funds and dollars allocated to category as dollars are shifting earlier & later.