Techcrunch’s piece on venture returns seemed a little optimistic to me when I read it. And @cdixon agreed–pointing to the Calpers data which I have used before.
What is good about Calpers CEV program is that it is a massive program of investment into VC funds. While it misses many of the locked-up super-stellar West Coast VCs (like Sequoia), it is a fair bet that Calpers is a choice LP for many VC funds.
As a caveat to my analysis: I am not a trained financial analyst, so this is best efforts. Since I don’t have the dates of either draw downs and disbursements, I can’t calculate precise IRRs. Someone with more time could build a probabilistic model of this, if you need.
Headline numbers: Calpers put $3bn into CEV from 1999 to mid-2009. By that point, the net value (in terms of cash paid out and the book value of investments held) was $2.86bn, representing an overall loss of 6.4%. J-curve affects aside, this suggests that venture has returned less than zero over the past decade.
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