Resetting venture capital return expectations: is 10x the new 3x?

When I started Version One Ventures in 2012, every experienced VC shared the same rule of thumb: we had to return 3x net consistently to stay in business (i.e. 3x the invested capital net of fees over a period of about ten years for a net IRR in the low twenties). Ten years (almost) and […]

We’re hiring a contract content creator!

A year and a half ago, we published the first edition of our Startup Handbook. It has been well received, with over 30K downloads to date. But any guide book is always a work in progress and we have received a lot of great feedback on how to make it more valuable. As such, we […]

Announcing Fund IV and Opportunities Fund II

We’re thrilled to announce the closing of two new funds: Fund IV ($70M USD) and Opportunities Fund II ($30M USD).  While these funds may be new, our values and goals remain the same. We still look for pre-seed and seed stage opportunities, as we believe these are the stages where we can add the most […]

The Version One Anti-Portfolio – the opportunities we missed…

Bessemer started the idea of the “anti-portfolio” – the companies that you passed on, but ended up doing very, very well.  Here is the Version One anti-portfolio that we have built over the past decade: Carta We were introduced to Henry Ward from eShares through our friend Manu Kumar from K9 Ventures in 2013. We […]