Money In, Money Out: An Examination Of US VC Invested vs. Exited

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Last month, we wrote about how the ratio of VC investments to exits in the US is at a record high—11.3x. Based on the feedback to that post, we decided to dig a little deeper and explore the amount of US venture capital invested vs. capital exited.

The results tell a somewhat different story.

In the first half of 2017, $37.8 billion of venture capital was invested in US-based companies, while $25.2 billion was exited, per the 2Q PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. That makes the capital invested-to-exited multiple historically elevated at 1.5x but lower than 2015’s mark of 1.62x—a high mark since the 1.64x recorded in 2009.

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While this trend is much less alarming than the investment-to-exit pattern we've noticed in 2017, it's worth noting to help illustrate the current venture landscape.

US venture capital invested vs. exited

Some long-awaited unicorn IPOs may increase the amount of capital exited by year's end, but disappointing public offerings recently—Snap, Cloudera and Blue Apron each went public at valuations equal to or lower than their previous private valuations—potentially make that an unlikely ending to this story.

Read our original piece: VC investment-to-exit ratio in the US at record high.

And here's all of our featured coverage of VC exits.

Article by Kate Clark, PitchBook

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