考夫曼基金会（Kauffman Foundation）最近宣称，风投模式已死。合广投资（Union Square）的费雷德•威尔逊也说，风投模式可供使用的资金太多，因此无法成功。还有人选取了超过25个例子来证明风投模式已经破产。罗森投资公司（Sevin Rosen）在上世纪九十年代以个人电脑和电信硬件投资著称，但它在2006年放弃了一只新基金，退还投资，标志着这一死亡倒计时的开始。

    过去十年的平均风投回报确实很糟。康桥咨询公司（Cambridge Associates）2010年12月截止的10年累计美国风投回报指数变为负值（每年-2.0%），成为当时的头条新闻。该指数在2011年12月截止的10年间又猛增到每年3.3%，同时期纳斯达克指数平均回报每年2.9%。但是，考虑到风投投资的流动性不佳，因为投资者应该得到比公开市场投资高出3%-5%的溢价。

    首先，我的一点看法：这些都是马后炮，提供有益信息但没有预测力。在“非理性繁荣”爆发的1998-2000年，超过2,000亿美元的资本涌入美国风投市场，此前该市场每年不过吸收50-100亿美元。这笔钱导致市场上资金严重供过于求，经过很久才逐渐消失。

    The venture capital model is dead, proclaimed the Kauffman Foundation recently. Too much available money for the VC model to succeed added Union Square's Fred Wilson. Another details 25+ stories on why the VC model is broken. Sevin Rosen, a firm known for PC and telecom hardware investments in the 1990s, started this death watch in 2006, when it aborted closing a new fund.

    Average VC returns for the last ten years do stink. Cambridge Associates made headlines when its 10-year cumulative U.S. VC return index went negative at (2.0%)/year in December 2010. The index popped up to 3.3%/year for the decade through December 2011. Over the same period the NASDAQ returned 2.9%/year. But, given the illiquid nature of VC investments, investors deserve a 3% - 5% premium, at least, over public markets.

    First, a bit of perspective: These are rear-view-mirror analyses, informative but not predictive. In the '98-'00 burst of "irrational exuberance," over $200 billion of capital flooded into the U.S. venture market, which had previously absorbed $5-$10 billion per year. This money put a huge supply overhang on the market that has taken time to disappear.

    如上图所示，资本的过度供应导致回报在2002和2003年暴跌。这两年-20%的回报是整个十年低迷回报的主要推动力。另一个短暂的下行区间就是全球金融危机，风投行业轻松地度过了（并不存在任何系统风险）。十年间剩下的时间里，风投11%-17%的净回报率中规中矩，虽然不那么光彩夺目，但比多数投资者在公开的股票市场7%的期望回报率还是高出4%-10%。而且这只是平均回报，某些基金表现还要更好。

    从1998-2000年得到（或者说再次得到）的主要教训就是：规模在1亿-4亿美元之间的风投基金的回报率较高。资金的疯狂涌入产生了许多10亿美元级别的风投基金。但它们并没能实现高回报。哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）的约什•勒莫尔在最近的一篇论文中写道：“我们发现那些具有较高平均内部回报率的有限合伙公司通常投资于较小型和规模增长较缓慢的基金…”

    硅谷银行（Silicon Valley Bank）在2009年分析了这一“小就是好”的现象，得出结论是：和大型基金相比，小型的基金有5倍的可能实现所谓的“风投回报”（2倍以上的净回报率）。考夫曼基金会对其风险基金组合的分析肯定了硅谷银行的发现。

    As the chart above shows, over-supply of capital caused returns to plummet in 2002 and 2003. These two years of -20% returns are the main driver of poor returns for the decade. The other downward blip was the global financial crisis, which the VC community weathered easily (no systemic risk here!). For the rest of the decade, VC produced solid returns of 11%-17% net to investors. This is not yet stellar, but it is 4%-10% above the ~7% return most investors expect from public equity markets. And these are average returns; certain funds do much better.

    A key lesson learned (or re-learned) from'98-'00 is: Venture fund returns are higher if the fund size is between $100 and $400 million. The big influx of capital created many $1 billion venture funds. They have not delivered big returns. As Harvard Business School's Josh Lerner wrote in a recent paper: "We find that LPs that have higher average IRRs also tend to invest in smaller and slower growing funds …"

    Silicon Valley Bank analyzed the "small is better" phenomenon in 2009 and concluded that smaller funds are five times more likely to deliver a "venture return" (2X+ net to investors) compared to on larger funds. The Kauffman Foundation confirmed SVB's finding with this analysis of its venture fund portfolio:

    展望未来，我们发现五股力量将合力加强风险资本生态体系：

    1. 颠覆: 社交/局域/移动/web 2.0是实现人类前所未见伟大动力，将带来颠覆和革新。

    2. 创业者: 投入到创业的热情空前高涨。

    3. 天使投资: 天使投资者的种子基金已经遍地开花，将继续成长。

    4. 风险资金供应减少。

    5. 退出机制丰富，成长道路宽广。

    1. 颠覆。移动、社交网络、云和“数码土著”一代正在改变一切。他们已经比个人电脑的浪潮来势更凶猛，并将带来更大变革。耐用品的销售和媒体（电影、书刊和音乐）已被彻底颠覆。本地商家现在已经感受到风暴将至。医疗保健和教育不相信会受到冲击，咱们等着瞧。数万亿美元的现存市值将被摧毁，而颠覆者将创造更大的价值。

    2. 创业者。我有四个儿子，其中一个明年将升入大学。他现在就已经想成为高科技的创业者。当年我们读大学的时候，那可不是主流选择。但是今天的楷模正在穿着连帽衫奔忙于上市路演，创业队伍中的学生军也不再是神话传说，而像Facebook这样的科技平台公司极大地降低了靠软件发家的生意门槛。

    3. 天使在飞翔。2010年，天使投资者向6.19万家公司投入201亿美元。当《就业法案》（JOBS Act）的大众融资条款在2013年1月生效时，我们相信公司的数目将急剧增长，达到数十万量级。大众融资法限定每家公司每年向大众融资不超过100万美元。这笔钱足够让公司生产原型产品，但要商业化或者上规模则远远不够。风投将会有巨大的机会带领其中最优秀的公司和创业者走出下一步。

    Looking forward, we see five converging forces that will strengthen the venture capital ecosystem:

    1. Disruption: Social/local/mobile/web 2.0 is the greatest engine for disruption and innovation man has yet seen

    2. Entrepreneurs: There has never been more energy for creating businesses

    3. Angels: Seed funding by angels has bloomed and will grow further

    4. Reduced Supply of venture capital

    5. Exits are way up, and the road is paved for growth

    1. Disruption. Mobile, social networks, the cloud, and the "digital native" generation are changing everything. They are already growing faster, and will be much bigger than the PC wave. Hard goods retailing and media (movies, books, and music) have already been uprooted by this tsunami. Local commerce feels the storm rising now. Healthcare and education don't believe it will hit them – just wait. Trillions of dollars of existing market value will be destroyed, and the disruptors will create even more value.

    2. Entrepreneurs. One of our sons is going to college next year and wants to be a technology entrepreneur. That was not a mainstream choice when we went to college. But today's role models are on IPO road shows dressed in hoodies, student-entrepreneurs have cred and technology platform companies like Facebook have dramatically lowered the hurdle for software-based businesses.

    3. Angels Take Flight. In 2010, angels invested $20.1 billion into 61,900 companies. When the crowdfunding provision of the JOBS Act goes live in January 2013, we think that number will grow dramatically – into the hundreds of thousands. The crowdfunding bill limits annual fundraising per company from the "crowd" to $1 million. That's enough money to prototype a company, but not enough to commercialize or scale it. There will be huge opportunity for VCs to carry the best companies and entrepreneurs forward.

    4. 风险投资供应减少。相对于慷慨的天使投资者，风险投资的来源在枯竭。过去5年中，无论是风投基金得到的承诺投资，还是活跃基金的数目都减少了一半（见上图）。2010年，仅1001家公司从风投基金得到初始融资。这意味6.19万家受到天使投资支持的公司中，仅有2% 可能会获得风险投资。而大众融资将进一步扩大处于前风投阶段的公司数量。早期风投将面对巨大的机会流，其中不乏高质量公司（比如，那些生产出原型并已在市场初试啼声的公司）。这对仍然活跃的早期风投公司是重大利好。

    5. 更多更好的退出机制。《就业法案》的重大突破是所谓的“上市快通道”，它能为准备上市的小型公司减少费用和延迟，并吸引分析师人士小市值公司。随着像阿莱克斯和罗伯特森•斯蒂芬斯这样的新一代精品投行成长起来，服务于那些常常被“大到不能倒”的银行所忽略的小型创业公司，这些改变的积极效应将在未来五年逐一显现。

    最后，时机看起来也支持风投全新的黄金时代即将到来的看法。你很难真正吃准风投市场的时机，因为需要很长时间进入和退出公司。但是基金投资者可以从前述的牢固基本面分析得到信心。Harbourvest创始人布鲁克斯•祖格和Accel创始人亚瑟•帕特森都观察到风投基金的表现有一个长周期，他们都认为未来五年风投将顺风顺水。在经历上世纪九十年代的繁荣和本世界开始十年的萧条之后，美国的风投行业刚刚度过一段整顿时期。现在是对风险投资另眼相看的时候了。

    约翰•巴克斯和托德•希克森是新大西洋风投（New Atlantic Ventures）的合伙人，该公司在弗吉尼亚和马萨诸塞设有办事处。

    4. Reduced Supply Of Venture Capital. In contrast to the bountiful angels, the sources of venture capital are drying up. Both the dollars committed to VC funds and the number of active funds has declined by half in the last five years (chart above). In 2010 1,001 companies received initial funding from VC funds. This means that only ~2% of the 61,900 angel funded companies are likely to receive institutional venture capital. And crowdfunding will expand the pool of pre-VC companies. Early-stage VCs will see a huge flow of opportunities, many of them high-quality (i.e., companies that have prototypes and meaningful market results when we meet them). That's a very good thing for the early stage VCs that remain active.

    5. More and Better Exits. The big breakthrough with the JOBS act is the "IPO On-Ramp", which reduces cost and delay for smaller companies aiming to go public and makes analyst coverage of small-cap companies attractive. The benefit of these changes will emerge over the next five years, as a new generation of boutique investment banks, like Alex Brown and Robertson Stephens, grows up to serve smaller start-up companies that are largely ignored by the "too big to fail" banks.

    Finally, timing seems to be on the side of a new golden age of VC. You can't really time the venture market, because it takes too long to move in and out. But, fund investors can take confidence from the strong fundamentals noted above. Harbourvest founder Brooks Zug and Accel founder Arthur Patterson have both observed a long-term cycle in VC fund performance, and they both see the VC tide rising over the next five years. We're coming off a period of retrenchment in U.S. VC following the late '90s boom and the early '00s bust. Now is the time to take a new look at venture capital.

    John Backus and Todd Hixon are partners with New Atlantic Ventures, a VC firm with offices in Virginia and Massachusetts.