Dear SaaStr: How Much Money Have VCs Lost on Startups In the Past 5 Years?
I’m going to estimate about $200-$300 Billion of losses. Not all realized yet, but about that much.
Why $300 Billion?
Roughly, VCs model losing money on about 40% of their deals, but only 20% overall. The losses aren’t equal, and you can mitigate them by not making further investments.
So if roughly we’ve raised $300B a year over the past 5 years, more or less … then 20% of that total would be … $300 Billion.
Dealroom data from here
