2010年和2011年间，在上市前阶段的互联网公司中，最被风险投资家看好的是通常所谓的互联网“四骑士”： Facebook、社交游戏公司Zynga、团购网站Groupon和Twitter。 这么说吧，他们无比热衷于投资这些公司，甚至不惜做出了一些前所未有的疯狂举动：从二级市场购买普通股，接受数十亿美元的超高估值，开出巨额支票。

    目前，Facebook 已经成功上市，我们再来看看四骑士中另外两个上市公司Zynga (ZNGA) 和Groupon (GRPN) 的股票表现。

•     Zynga: Zynga的生意火爆之前，前几轮风险投资募集的资金相当有限。而随着收入迅猛增长，股票的估值也直冲云霄。2010年，Zynga以每股6.44美元的价格募集了3亿美元。到了2011年，Zynga募集另外5亿美元时的价格就高达每股约14美元。这几轮的投资者包括风投基金、公共基金、投行和战略投资者。目前Zynga股票价格略高于每股7美元。很明显，2010和2011年的风投投资者所期望的并不是这个价格。他们的8亿美元投资基本上没有获得回报，甚至赔本。

•     Groupon: Groupon在2010年以接近每股2.7美元的价格募集了约1.35亿美元。然后在2011年，Groupon募集了打破风投纪录的9.5亿美元，股价约7.9美元。目前股价在每股11-12美元间震荡，所以2010年投资者都获得了可观的回报，而2011年的投资者回报不足50%。此外，锁定期还未结束。如果投资者争相套利，导致股价下滑，2011年那个巨额轮次的回报还可能更加难看。

    很显然Zynga 和Groupon都是了不起的公司：他们开拓新市场并占据了巨大的份额，收入以惊人的速度增长。然而，最后几轮的风险投资并没有获得预期的成功。原因何在？

    1. 看低成长。通常而言，风投特别看重增长率，增长越快越好。风投最大的回报都来自那些成长为大型企业的公司，而只有快速成长的公司才能迅速壮大。因此，只要看到创业公司快速成长的可能，风投从来不会在乎价格。公众投资者也喜欢成长型公司。但由于其接触的公司通常已经处于生命周期的后期，他们已经习惯认为，由于大数定律的作用，即使是处于快速成长期的公司，其成长也会随着时间推移而减弱。按照他们的经验法则，其它条件相当时，相对于增长率50%的公司，公众投资者并不会给予100%增长率的公司更高倍数的估值。他们预期两个公司的增长率都会随着时间推移而降低并最终相等，所以他们不愿为一时的极端成长额外掏钱。

    In 2010 and 2011, the four hottest pre-IPO Internet companies amongst venture capitalists were Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Twitter – the "Four Horsemen" of the Internet, as they were commonly called. To wit, demand to get into the action on these four companies was so strong that venture capital firms starting doing things they hadn't done before – buying secondary stakes of common shares, paying multi-billion valuations and writing very large checks.

    With the successful IPO of Facebook (FB) now behind us, it's interesting to look at the performance of Zynga (ZNGA) and Groupon (GRPN), the other members of the Four Horsemen who are now public.

•     Zynga: After raising a fairly modest amount of cash in its first few venture rounds, Zynga's business caught fire. With tremendous revenue growth, its valuation soared and in 2010, Zynga raised approximately $300 million at approximately $6.44/share. In 2011, Zynga raised an additional $500 million at approximately $14/share. The investors in these rounds included venture capital funds, public funds, investment banks and strategic investors. Today, Zynga's public stock price sits at just over $7/share. This price clearly isn't what the investors in the '10 and '11 venture rounds were expecting. Basically $800 million has been invested with little or negative return.

•     Groupon: Groupon raised approximately $135 million in 2010 at approximately $2.70/share. Later, in 2011, Groupon raised the mother of all venture rounds - $950 million at just about $7.90/share. Today the stock is hovering between $11- 12/share, so the 2010 investors are sitting on a solid return but the investors in the 2011 round are below 1.5x. The lock up has yet to come off as well. If these investors look to rush for the exits and the share price softens, the returns on this huge round may end up even more paltry.

    Obviously Zynga and Groupon are amazing companies – they've invented markets, captured huge percentages of these markets and have grown revenues at phenomenal rates. Nonetheless, the last few rounds of venture investments haven't panned out as planned. Why not?

    1. Discounting Growth. VCs tend to get very focused on growth rates. The faster something is growing, the better. The really big venture returns have been made in companies that got very large, and unless a company is growing fast, it won't get large quickly. So, almost no price is too high for VCs when they see fast growth in a startup. Public investors love growth as well. But, because they see companies later in their lifecycles, they've been trained to expect growth rates of high fliers to taper over time as the law of large numbers kicks in. As a rule of thumb, public investors rarely pay higher multiples for a company growing 100% versus a company growing 50%, all else being equal. They expect growth to moderate and equal out over time, so they're just not willing to pay extra for extreme growth.

    2. 盈利率问题。多数快速成长的公司早期并不盈利，而没有盈利，就无法计算市盈率。没有市盈率时，风投通常参考市销率。公众投资者也会这么做，而且有很多证据表明他们并不认为早期盈利企业更值钱。虽然如此，公众投资者最终还是希望看到盈利，特别的，他们愿意为长期盈利率扩大的公司付出高价。然而证明盈利率扩张是需要时间的，通常比风投积极参与公司的时间要长。Zynga和Groupon 都显示了某种形式的盈利能力，但盈利率扩张能力并没有得到验证，所以公众投资者不愿给公司开出高价。

    3. 商业模式之惑。风投支持的公司中最快速成长的那些通常都会有新的商业模式。Groupon的运营方式太新，以至于它试图创造一项全新的指标，来帮助投资者理解公司内部如何度量业绩。Zynga则是首家成功利用Facebook平台的大型公司。虽然创新模式帮助Zynga 和Groupon获得了巨大的增长率，他们却找不到可以用来指引公众投资者的类似或可比公司。如果没有好的参照物，即使是最令人兴奋的公司，公众投资者对其估值也无所适从。结果就是，早期上市公司的估值乘数可能大起大落，直至其商业模式被证明行之有效。

    当然，并不是所有对处于上市前阶段的公司的晚期风投都表现不佳。虽然对Zynga和Groupon 的最后几轮风险投资不如人意，仍然有几家获得风投支持的新上市公司给出了良好的回报。

    比如，虽然在未上市前并没有获得风险投资界的狂热吹捧，点评网站Yelp (YELP), 商务社交网站LinkedIn (LNKD) 和Splunk (SPLK)的后期风投都有上佳表现。因此，风投和其它投资者在参与上市前的高价投资轮次时，需要考虑什么样的公司会在华尔街大卖，而不仅仅是在沙岭路（硅谷的一条公路，以风险投资公司聚集闻名——编者注）大卖。

    格伦•所罗门是纪源资本（GGV Capital）的合伙人，纪源资本是扩张阶段的风险投资公司，在加州门洛帕克和上海设有办事处。 他在www.sandhillrdmeetswallst.com撰写博客

    2. Profit Margin Picture. Most high growth companies aren't profitable early on, and without earnings, there isn't a P/E ratio to measure. In the absence of a P/E, VCs tend to look at price to sales ratios. Public investors do this as well, and there is good evidence to suggest that public investors don't necessarily pay more for profitable companies early on. (See my previous post on profitable vs. unprofitable IPOs.) That said, eventually public investors want to see profits and, more specifically, they'll pay up for a company that can show profit margins expanding over time. Often it takes a while to prove that profit margins can expand, usually long after VCs are actively engaged with a company. Both Zynga and Groupon show certain forms of profitability, but margin expansion doesn't seem proven, so public investors have been less willing ascribe high prices to these companies.

    3. Proven versus Unproven Models. Often times, the fastest growing VC-backed companies operate with new models. Groupon's approach is so new that it tried to invent a metric to help investors understand how it gauges results internally. Zynga is the first large company to leverage the Facebook platform successfully. While their innovative models helped catapult Zynga and Groupon's growth rates, these companies don't have analogous or comparable companies they can point public investors toward. In the absence of good comparable companies, public investors often become uncertain how to value even the most exciting companies. As a result, valuation multiples can swing wildly in the early days of a public company's life until models become more proven.

    Not all late VC rounds in pre-IPO companies under-perform. While Zynga and Groupon haven't been strong performers for the investors in the last rounds of venture capital in those companies, there are several newly public venture-backed companies that have delivered for their VCs.

    For example, the last VC rounds in Yelp (YELP), LinkedIn (LNKD) and Splunk (SPLK), although less heralded by VCs during their times as private companies, have all performed very well. VCs and other investors in high priced pre-IPO rounds need to think more about what will sell on Wall Street, not just on Sand Hill Road.

    Glenn Solomon is a partner with GGV Capital, an expansion stage venture capital firm with offices in Menlo Park and Shanghai. He blogs at www.sandhillrdmeetswallst.com.