Yes -- there are many Zombie VCs. And glad to see Danielle doing this stuff but you have to be careful in drawing these conclusions.
First, many funds don't do Series A's. That is their strategy. At the top of the spreadsheet are several funds that are mid, later, growth and private-equity stage firms (IVP, Warburg). Them not doing Series As has less to do with their Zombie status then them adhering to their strategy.
While there are other issues with the data as highlighted below, this issue of fund strategy is a critical one so wanted to highlight.
Also, picking short timeframes of 3 months or 1 month isn't a great test as funds have 7-10 year lifetimes. A couple of months doesn't make for a trend.
Again, we think there is value in highlighting this data as there tends to only be good news reported but just would caution against errant conclusions.
Notes:
I'm one of the co-founders of CB Insights and our firm tracks this data. We actually help LPs (the investors in VC funds) identify VCs doing poorly or who appear to be the walking dead. But it's messy as hell.
Another great thing about Danielles's post is that this will hopefully incentivise funds/investors to update their public information on databases such as CrunchBase. I'm pretty sure some investors are not happy to see their name on that list, not because they are "zombies" but due to a simple case of not updating their transactional/deal information.
We started a company called ChubbyBrain (CB is our tribute to that). 0% of our data is from crunch.
In terms of where it comes from:
80% of our data comes via software we've built to parse news, SEC, investor, corporate websites (we crawl about 12k of them daily).
About 20% of our data comes directly from investors. The biggest contingent is angel data which we get via a partnership we have with Silicon Valley Bank and the Angel Capital Association.
Interestingly, more than a handful of the funds listed in the list of zombies are life science and healthcare-related funds.
As someone running a biotech startup, this is rather relevant to me...
It occurs to me that the cutoff of 6 months since last round may be a bit short for the life science world, where funds tend to make fewer, bigger investments with lower frequency.
It's also interesting to note that a few strategic venture funds are listed (Novartis stuck out at me) and that these guys might not fit the same mod, given that they invest with eye on relevance to the mothership.
With those two caveats in mind, there are also some indicators to suggest that early stage investing in biotech/life-science startups has been slowing down over the last few years. There was a big of a boom prior to this, but it's fairly widely acknowledged that there haven't been good returns for the billions of dollars poured into early-stage biotech companies. There's now a bias toward larger series A's on slightly lower risk startups...
I would be happy to make you another list that has 12 month cutoff, would that help? We were discussing last night whether health/biotech funds have a different cycle than web tech, would love to know your thoughts on that.
Danielle, I enjoy your posts (and there have been a lot of them on HN of late) but question how much faith you want to put into Crunchbase. It suffers a bit from "Wikipedia disease" which is that its sort of self selecting and the quality of the information in it varies quite a bit. A great place to look for symptoms but I don't know how much faith you can put in conclusions drawn from it's data.
I can totally vouch for the lack of curating that is done on Crunchbase data because a couple of months ago I had people congratulating me on the 1.2M seed round that my startup had raised ... my startup that at the time did not even exist as a company yet much less had it been looking for investment.
I respect what Danielle is doing and her post have been interesting lately(leads me to wondering what the pivot for referly is going to be) but I definitely would not solely get data from places like Crunch base. They have some competitors out there who curate their data MUCH better but they also happen to charge for access to it.
In the same way at a VC will often send you to an associate because they’re “too nice” to say no.
Thats one thing that bothers me in business, is the "social contract" of avoiding appearing abrasive or aloof, so everyone tells each other white lies to make everyone feel better. I'm not referring specifically to VCs (I have almost no experience with VCs). Contrast that with somebody like PG who has a reputation for being blunt, but also being constructive and generous with his time.
Accountability belongs on both sides of the table is for everyone's benefit, and Danielle is right to call attention to this.
We're also in a business world where we can't be upfront with our insecurities, worries, personal failures (unless they somehow lead to you becoming Herculean thereafter), self-doubt, etc.
No, it is not healthy, and imo it contributes significantly to the detriment of our mental health.
Thats one thing that bothers me in business, is the "social contract" of avoiding appearing abrasive or aloof, so everyone tells each other white lies to make everyone feel better.
The list doesn't seem that accurate. Some of these "VCs" are actually angel groups that don't do Series A, other than follow ons (Webb Investment Network).
Others have started Angel funds (Ron Conway) and no longer invest personally.
All of this data is from Crunchbase, and the column D "Date of Most Recent Series A Investment" indicates they participated in the round though they might not have lead.
You hold up "all this data is from Crunchbase" like it's a shield, and basically say the same about your Alexa web numbers for YC start-ups - don't blame me, blame my methodology!
Why not try and come up with a more robust method than pouring over CrunchBase and appending "Na ni na ni boo boo VCs, if this data is wrong, contact me,"
It's not a shield, it's a sign. I'm working with limited public data trying to create something new and I'm working on improving it but it takes time - making this post alone was a labor of love and I realize this kind of analysis still has a long way to go. One of the best ways to get data to make these lists better has been to publish what is available and get feedback on what is wrong, where to look, who to ask etc.
When I make these posts suddenly people start returning my emails requesting data.
It also occurs to me that we have no problem judging and speculating about startups based on nothing more than a TechCrunch post with extremely limited public data. It's funny that it is so much less socially acceptable to do this with investors. Maybe I can change that.
Going public saying "don't work with these funds" and then telling them you'll take them off the s!!t list when they share their private data with you sounds an awful lot like what in other walks of life people would call extortion.
I have a list of everyone who has paid their credit card bills in the last several months (the list only covers people who live in my apartment.) You are not on it. Is it okay if I put up a public website calling you a deadbeat? If you don't want to be on it, just send me a copy of your bank statements.
My firm (Neu Venture Capital) is on the list, despite doing a Series A a few months ago, a Series B last month, and three seed deals in the last six months. O'Reilly Alphatech is on there, despite raising a $85 million Fund III six months ago. Quotidian is doing deals, Chris Sacca is doing deals, etc. Crunchbase data is incomplete. Saying people have done something based on it is relatively safe; saying people have not done something based on it is scurrilous.
[edit: the second paragraph is a hyperbolic analogy. I don't have such a list and I wouldn't use it that way if I did. That was my point, that it would be wrong to make that sort of implication based on data you know is incomplete.]
To be completely clear, I did not say in my post that founders should not work with these investors. I said it might be a waste of time to pitch them on a Series A, since it doesn't appear from publicly available data that they are doing those sorts of deals lately, and that founders should proceed accordingly.
I understand your frustration, startups used to cringe at mentions in the press but have come to understand that the world is interested in how they work, what they do, who they are and whether or not they create value. Investors have had remarkably less written about them and if they are not publicly sharing the fact they are helping founders get Series A deals done I hardly see why I shouldn't point it out, and create an incentive for greater transparency.
I will work to investigate more deeply and create a more useful data set.
Comparing this to extortion is quite a bit of hyperbole. You're talking about one journalist, publishing a list on a website... not a gang of armed thugs standing in your store going "this sure is a nice shop, would be a real cryin' shame if sumthin were to happen to it..."
Is dmor asking for money, or trying to strong arm anyone into doing anything? No, dmor is just reporting based on the information she has available. That it might be incomplete or inaccurate is worthy of pointing out, but it's a HUGE stretch to invoke an analogy to extortion.
dmor stands to profit with the list if some VCs send non-public data to her to get them off the list. That's extortion. She could become the Verisign of VC business. dmor approved VC list.
Oh? Then please share your definition, as I'm working off the basis that it's something like this[1]:
Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal offence of unlawfully obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection.
"...but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant." [1]
Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force,[1] but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.
So we've gone from talking about "extortion", a well known criminal offense with an everyday, commonplace meaning, to quibbling about an alternate definition of "exaction" which may sometimes be used synonymously with "extortion". If you meant to specifically talk about "exaction" then why not say so in the first place?
And in either case, I stand by my assertion that referring to dmor's article as such is a tremendous exercise in hyperbole.
> I have a list of everyone who has paid their credit card bills in the last several months (the list only covers people who live in my apartment.) You are not on it. Is it okay if I put up a public website calling you a deadbeat? If you don't want to be on it, just send me a copy of your bank statements.
EXTREMELY uncalled for, petty, and potentially libelous. If this was not just a 'random example' and doesn't relate to Danielle herself....then this is some bullshit.
I don't know you, nor know your fund, but as an entrepreneur reading this, I would never trust you in a million years. Personally, I would steer clear of you and your fund, for fear of you leaking personal information about me when you get pissed.
If this is indeed what you meant, and were specifically talking about Danielle...not cool. Not cool at all.
But...truthfully, I am glad that you did, because we all need to know which VCs to steer clear of. You just cemented yourself (and your fund) on that list, as far as I am concerned.
Edit 1: To be clear, I am not sure if you mean the list covers people in an apartment building you (or your fund) owns - or just your roommates that live with you. I assumed it was something like the former. If it was the latter, and you were just using it as an example, then I stand corrected. If it was the former...then what I said still applies.
I think the poster was being sarcastic? E.g. "Is this ok? Because this is what you're doing, and it's obviously not ok, and you'd never agree that it was if framed in this way."
It also occurs to me that we have no problem judging and speculating about startups based on nothing more than a TechCrunch post with extremely limited public data. It's funny that it is so much less socially acceptable to do this with investors. Maybe I can change that.
Isn't this like the third blog post from daniellemorril.com within the last 2 weeks making it to HN front page ?
Also -- it seems obvious that while the author has tools to crawl web sites and pull data into a CSV, it seems dubious that the author spent anytime in running a manual sanity check before presenting her findings. For example, "O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures" and "OReilly Alpha Tech Ventures" are the same thing.
Author here. I have presented Crunchbase data as is without any "cleaning" but I assure you I have run a sanity check on the companies involved, and emails are pouring in from founders confirming they have experienced wasted time with investors on this list. I am happy to de-dupe those two items on the list and check for others, and will continue to fix any other errors people report.
Do you think you would get a similar volume of emails if you posted a list of VCs selected at random? I suspect so. Many are called but few are chosen.
Also, she included angel groups like Angels' Forum, Keiretsu Forum and Sand Hill Angels that do not have official funds, as well as, including strategic funds like BASF, who do not have an investor or die model. Finally, she lists Ron Conway and Chris Sacca's Lowercase Capital, who are not out of dry powder.
She's not saying they're evil! She's just presenting a data point, and then some further advice on screening once you get a first meeting. The people arguing about specific entries on the list are missing the point.
I agree that "zombies" is good writing but suboptimal reporting, in the same sense as maybe Ron Conway really isn't investing, but if he's not taking spurious first meetings with company operators, he's not "walking among us" and thus doesn't qualify as a zombie.
Also OATV is a seed fund – they may have participated in a few series A's in the past, but probably don't deserve to be mentioned in this list. Should probably add a filter for investors that do 80%+ seed deals and just a few series A's.
Don't you think it is worthwhile for founders to know an investor used to do seed and follow on into the A round, but doesn't appear to be doing so anymore?
Renee from OATV here. OATV.com clearly articulates our investment thesis and deep-reserve model. It hasn't changed.
Perhaps, as others have pointed out, you should reconsider using Crunchbase as a reliable or up-to-date source of information. Or, at a minimum, do some supplemental fact-checking via Google.
Where I'm guessing that refer.ly is trying to raise their own series a and possibly getting frustrated.
That said - entrepreneurs should be more concerned with growing a business than making friends with VCs, so more power to danielle if this is how she ends up making it work.
It's certainly not retribution, I posted that story and I think it's interesting - and then it turned into a TC story!
Refer.ly recently pivoted - in fact every stat about our business is on the front page of our site. We aren't raising Series A, we have ~18 months of runway left at our current burn.
Because of lists like this VCs might in near future keep their traction very public on angellist and crunchbase, allowing founders to make better decisions.
Why not publish it if you publish the article? It's not as though someone else would be unable to pull the very same data. She isn't explicitly calling any of those VCs zombies, just noting that they meet one of her core criteria.
You're implying that information which may not be used wisely by the reader is unprofessional to publish.
Furthermore if those firms are healthy they have nothing to fear.
While the data may not be 100% accurate, I think the author makes a lot of great points about finding out what series A deals a particular investor has done to know whether this is a good fit.
> These are partners at venture firms who are 3-5 years into investing their fund, don’t have very strong results so far, and are struggling to raise new funds.
The post is manipulative because it defines zombie VC's as above. However, the data used to arrive at the list does not hold up to the above definition.
> Publishing the list feels unprofessional and manipulative
There's nothing unprofessional about publishing interesting data. The framing around it is what makes it manipulative. I can see how putting such a list along with the preceding blog post could feel... wrong.
> Even as a causal observer of the VC market, I was able to spot a lot of false positives in that list.
A great point. If you're going to publish data make sure it's correct first.
Brilliant. Takes guts to call out VCs like this. Now, I don't think your 6-month time period is the right data point to measure if they are a zombie or not. There are a lot of different reasons why VCs take short investment breaks, and the 6-month period does not allow for that. I think 18 months is more in line, because it allows you to see more of the failed investments and results overall. A zombie VC should be defined with a ratio of failed (money lost) VS. successful (money gained) deals. If they have a lower than average ratio then we can say that their confidence (and the confidence of their bankers) is down, and they are operating in Zombie mode.
But I'm probably wrong, because I am a value investor.
I think that is another valuable thing to measure in terms of overall success and direction the fund is going, and I'd certainly like to. I was hoping this would help founders who are trying to raise Series A right now figure out where to focus first - but I agree taking a longer view would give a more complete picture. It just needs a bit more math and data, but I'm noodling on it.
I do agree that it helps, and accomplishes your goal. Though I don't think VCs will applaud your efforts too much (well, some may). They also go through slumps, and unlike entrepreneurs, they don't like to talk about it. It hurts their credibility due to how bankers always want to bet on the lucky horse.
Do we need to pander to VCs? I'm also not sure that your assertion that it hurts their credibility is true.
Fred Wilson has publicly admitted himself that he hasn't led a deal all year. I don't think that affects his reputation. If anything, I think people applaud him for his transparent efforts.
The VC industry works like stocks. Its more what people are believing than actual hard numbers. Speculation is the name of the game. And speculation is driven by hearsay. So, that is why traction is a popular term these days, and why "founders" hate to talk about actual money earned. You can hear them say But with more investment we can get more traction and thus leverage the market towards using our product. Which is wall street talk for We heard $some_company is going to close a huge deal. We can't say when exactly, but its going to happen. We want to leverage the current stock price to gain a couple of extra points when the sale goes through.
You're relying on Crunchbase data? It appears (now I could be wrong) that even the Crunchbase data on your own company is wrong. Crunchbase shows referly raised $2m. Is that correct? If the Crunchbase data on your own company is wrong, how can you possibly rely on that data to evaluate other VCs/companies?
I really enjoy these posts by Danielle. For entrepreneurs head-deep in product and not at the fundraising stage yet, these posts are really informative and paint a quick picture of the venture scene. Kind of wish there was a dedicated site that pulled data like this in from Crunchbase, etc. on an ongoing basis and produced reports/graphs. Side project idea maybe?
> In the same way at a VC will often send you to an associate because they’re “too nice” to say no,
I'm going to guess that the author has never raised significant money (>$10M) from VCs. The quoted sentence fragment speaks volumes on a lack of understanding of the VC animal kingdom.
I don't understand this. I haven't quite raised 10MM in a round at a company I actually cofounded, but I came close to that number, and that 'dmor sentence didn't so much ring true as seem banal and obvious. Associates are who you talk to when VC's want to blow you off. And VC's rarely say no.
I've been an entrepreneur. And I've been the low man on the VC totem pole. If I'm the only one from my firm at an event or conference, you want to see me. If you're coming to our offices, you don't.
I mean, I'd want to talk to you at a conference anyways, because you're fun to talk to. I'm not trying to be dismissive of people who happen to be associates. :)
If you say so. I'm no authority, but the times I've been out, I was coached by people who were pretty experienced, and the advice we got was uniformly "if you can't get to a partner you're wasting your time". Also: it was never a challenge to get to a partner.
Thomas, I enjoy your HN writings, but I'm afraid you comments here may mislead readers.
Associates play a key role at VCs, sourcing MANY investments, and serving as gatekeepers.
When I was a VC Associate, I sourced 6 investments, totaling over $50M invested. Those entrepreneurs are glad they met with the lowly Associate (I'm now good friends with many of them and have discussed the topic).
This idea of "don't talk to an Associate" is misguided from the real fact: the Partners are the decision-makers at the firm. If you can meet with a Partner instead of only an Associate - do it! At the very least, it decreases your cycle time. Don't have a connection to a Partner? Can't make schedules work? Meet the Associate. Hundreds of entrepreneurs get funded this way, every year.
I believe you. If I ever go talk to VC again, I'll do my best to unlearn the old idea. For what it's worth, nobody ever told us to religiously avoid talking to associates, just that (a) our goal was to convert to partner ASAP, and (b) if you can't do that, move on. I imagine it's (b) that you disagree with.
For whatever it's worth, I'm only commenting because I thought the swipe at 'dmor upthread was unwarranted. Even if the idea of associates as wastes of time is totally unwarranted, it's a very common idea, including among people who have done very well with fundraising.
Btw Thomas, I wouldn't say you're wrong - of course you should talk to a partner if you can (my advice, independent of me). But many times, an associate can help figure out where to direct it, what the interest level is, and can be an advocate for your company (especially at an early stage) internally.
I completely agree. And I should mention that it's not that I don't think it's possible for an entrepreneur to know more about investing than I do, just that it shows hubris.
I guess if that's what you're interested in, this could be what you're looking for... though this is a lot like picking stocks based on price patterns: It gives you a phenomenally narrow view based solely on results with absolutely no insight into how or why things are happening or not happening.
I can see how this information, were it in any way insightful, would be useful to a lot of people. However, not only are the criteria very arbitrary, the list is being built from admittedly incomplete and/or incorrect data, and the opt-out-of-my-public-shaming approach is disingenuous at best.
This post merely highlights an important fact many entrepreneurs who are looking to raise capital ignore: you're not in control of your own destiny. If you can't move forward in building your business without investor money, you're forced to spend more time and energy on the fundraising game than product, sales, marketing, and business development.
The data presented here may or may not be accurate or interesting, and the conclusions drawn from it may or may not be valid, but regardless, worrying more about the state of VC firms than your own company is a losing proposition.
...but regardless, worrying more about the state of VC firms than your own company is a losing proposition.
This, a thousand times this. I know I've ranted about this a lot lately, but I think (some|many|most) entrepreneurs would be better served to focus on how to get customers and fund their companies through organic revenue growth, rather than climbing on the "funding merry-go-round" right away.
I think it's a major flaw to this analysis that alot of those firms specialize in non-series A financing and only do occasional series A investments. Calling them zombie VCs is inaccurate and makes no sense. Examples: SV Angel, Charles Schwab, Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global, etc.
That, plus the fact that Crunchbase is incomplete to begin with, as others have pointed out.
I wouldn't be so sure. In addition to Ron's stats shown on the list, SV Angel also has not participated in a Series A since January 2013, but was on a regular 1-2 Series A deal a month pattern before that (in addition to tons of angel). http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/sv-angel
With David Lee moving to LA and Ron Conway much more involved in politics, I'll be watching
I thought SV Angel does mostly seed rounds, not series A... seems to me alot of the names on this list are firms that specialize in non-series A deals but might have occasionally thrown a series A into the mix. Flaw in the methodology, I think.
> might have occasionally thrown a series A into the mix
dmor said:
> on a regular 1-2 Series A deal a month pattern before that
I think that's enough that it could lead some founders to look to SV Angel for Series A funding. It may be only a fraction of what they did, but it's still useful for people to be informed of this, because Ron Conway didn't announce his intentions in the matter.
Agreed, the title is a bit sensational. There are a handful of active, quality firms on this list. I don't think it's fair to call out SoftBank Capital, Quotidian, etc. I appreciate the goal here, but the approach is flawed. (FWIW, I work in venture, but the firm I work at is not listed.)
I work at Quotidian, and I agree it's a bit amusing to see our name there, since we're almost exclusively an angel fund. (Perhaps flattering, to be mistaken for a larger firm!).
To give you an idea of how 'dead' we are, note that the spreadsheet lists the date of our most recent angel investment as this week!
The goal is noble - the spreadsheet should be taken as a starting point, not a finishing point.
> USV missed the cutoff by 2 months, they were in the Sift Science Series A in November 2012
Understood, I just wanted to point out that there are legitimate reasons to go six months (or longer) without investing. The metric is helpful, but, like any isolated metric, not comprehensive.
Thanks for taking the time to put this together - very interesting data.
Danielle,
Firstly....you have more balls that many guys I know. Kudos to you for doing this.
As Obama said, Sunshine is the best form of disinfectant. High time we get a complete glimpse into the state of VC. Who is bullshitting everybody and who is not. Who is earning their keep and who is living off the exhorbitant mgmt fees they charge LPs.
On behalf of all entrepreneuers, thanks for starting that process.
We are seeing more and more Zombie VCs as funds are imploding and partners are being recycled into new funds. Ultimately, they are investment professionals such as Samurais are ronins when they loose their master. I think startups should keep in touch with them because the Zombie VC will reappear either as a VC or working for a cool internet company.
This could be a potentially valuable resource but the definition of zombie seems to ignore that at least some of the investors on this list do more seed deals than anything else. It should filter for that appropriately.
Applaud the effort, despite the data problems. In its current state I consider it more interesting than useful, but future versions could clearly be massively useful.
One thought: since many reg d filings are purposefully delayed by 1-2 months to control timing (and press) it might be more effective to analyze the time period of 9 mo ago to 3 mo ago.
May also be useful to add levels of caution (yellow is no deals in the 6 mo period, red is no deals in 12+).
Also, factoring in deviation from normal behavior would be a wonderful addition (and would remove some of the folks without much data represented)
I'd say that most of the mistakes in this are pointing at Crunchbase not being updated. Some of these firms in the top 10 have had several investments in the past 6 months as reported by Techcrunch...
In my experience, if you want reliable info (NOT Crunchbase nor companies who just crawl/spider them and resell it to you, you know who you are right below) use PrivCo, what I use in VC. It's reliable, confirmed with the VC firms and the startup founders. Rarely find anything off (crunchbase if way off as all the HN crew already has figured out).
Just do a search for VC firms and specify what date YOU want their last investment to be...everyone has different critera. If you think if it's been more than 6 months it's a "zombie VC" (I personally disagree, because without getting technical depends on age of the fund...a new 10-year fund invests most of its money in the first 2 years in a nutshell) then pick 6 months on PrivCo VC firm search for last investment. If you think it's 12 months search for 12 months. 18 months, search for that. Don't go by this nonsense list with arbitrary 13 month "cutoff", especially when many of these deals aren't announced - so they do have deals as evidenced from fellow HN crew discussion below missing, so the "no deal in 13 months" is wrong to begin with - you need a dedicated firm like PrivCo (or DowJones VentureSource) to diligently find those deals day after day. Just 1 missing VC deal for a firm throws off the entire "13 month zero deals" input there = output worthless.
Long way of saying search for venture capital firms in my humble opinion using PrivCo and the search criteria: last investment must be within X months, plus must have made investments in the precise sector you want, etc. Then you get the results, export to Excel, and it even has updated names and direct emails of the partners. It's a beauty. Might be others I haven't used too but this is what I personally use:
http://www.privco.com/investors
I think there is a market for quantified version of TheFunded.com. But the data must be much better quality than CrunchBase and curated by ex-VCs and not by active entrepreneurs.
Maybe this is evidence of the series A crunch more than it is evidence of zombies... some of the names on that list are not what you normally think of in the zombie context.
Warburg Pincus participated in a $26M Series A in CrowdStrike in February 2012. Tiger Global participated in a $10M Series A in BelezanaWeb.com.br in May 2012 and a $8M Series A in Olacabs in April 2012.
Have they participated in any more? It seems like one off investments by giant PE firms probably aren't helpful to any startup that doesn't already have a personal connection to those firms.
First, many funds don't do Series A's. That is their strategy. At the top of the spreadsheet are several funds that are mid, later, growth and private-equity stage firms (IVP, Warburg). Them not doing Series As has less to do with their Zombie status then them adhering to their strategy.
While there are other issues with the data as highlighted below, this issue of fund strategy is a critical one so wanted to highlight.
Also, picking short timeframes of 3 months or 1 month isn't a great test as funds have 7-10 year lifetimes. A couple of months doesn't make for a trend.
Again, we think there is value in highlighting this data as there tends to only be good news reported but just would caution against errant conclusions.
Notes: I'm one of the co-founders of CB Insights and our firm tracks this data. We actually help LPs (the investors in VC funds) identify VCs doing poorly or who appear to be the walking dead. But it's messy as hell.
More on that here for folks interested - http://www.cbinsights.com/team-blog/investor-analytics-zombi... (warning: part informational and promotional)