Earlier this month, around 100 institutional investors gathered at the Rosewood Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, for the annual limited partner meeting of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. What they heard was the firm’s staunch belief that the tech market is not currently in a bubble, despite the proliferation of so-called unicorn startups that have received billion-dollar (or higher) valuations in the private markets.

    Among the unicorns in Andreessen Horowotiz’s portfolio are Airbnb, Actifio, Instacart, Jawbone, Lyft, Jawbone, Pinterest, Slack and Zenefits. Prior investments included Box and Twitter .

    The VC firm’s argument was first presented to investors by chief operating officer Scott Kupor, via a slideshow that is now available on the firm’s website. It primarily compares the current environment to that of the dotcom bubble, showing that today’s tech investment volumes are much smaller despite the much larger number of Internet users. The firm also argues that the unicorn development — and relative lack of IPOs — means that most of the value appreciation is going to private market investors (i.e., those in the room).

    For example, Andreessen Horowitz reports that the total amount of venture capital and IPO financing dollars in 2014 was $48 billion, compared to $71 billion in 1999. That works out to around 2.6% of today’s GDP, while the 1999 figure comprised a much higher 10.8% of GDP. Moreover, the S&P IT index’s forward price-earnings ratio is 16.1x today versus 39x in 1999. All of this comes at a time when the global Internet population is 7.5x larger and annual e-commerce revenue is up more than 25x.

    本月早些时候，在位于硅谷中心地带的瑰丽酒店，约100名机构投资者参加了风险投资公司安德森•霍洛维茨的有限合伙人年会。该公司在会上坚定地表示，尽管私募市场估值达到甚至超过10亿美元的所谓“独角兽”创业公司越来越多，但科技市场目前并不存在泡沫。

    它投资的“独角兽”公司包括Airbnb、Actifio、Instacart、Jawbone、Lyft、Pinterest、Slack和Zenefits。之前还曾投资过Twitter以及云存储公司Box。

    在这次年会上，公司首席运营官斯科特·库柏首先登台发言，其演示文稿在该公司网站上已经可以看到。他主要对比了当前和网络泡沫时期的环境，从中可以看到：当下的科技投资体量要比上一轮互联网泡沫时期小得多，而互联网用户数却比那时大太多了。该公司还指出，大批“独角兽”的兴起以及其中进行IPO的公司相对较少，意味着大部分增值落到了私募市场投资者手里（比如参会的各位）。

    举例来说，据安德森•霍洛维茨公司的报告显示，2014年美国科技界通过风投和IPO得到的融资总规模为480亿美元，约占美国GDP的2.6%；而1999年这个数字为710亿美元，占GDP比例为10.8%，显然要高得多。此外，标普IT指数的远期市盈率目前为16.1倍，1999年则为39倍。而所有这些数字的时代背景是：目前全球互联网用户数量已是1999年的7.5倍，电子商务行业的年收入也增长了25倍以上。

    As for the unicorns, Andreessen Horowitz essentially argues that all of these later-stage, high-dollar venture rounds are essentially substitutes for IPOs, which it acknowledges are on life support. The volume of early-stage funding, however, has remained somewhat stable since the financial crisis.

    What that means, according to the VC firm, is that private market investors are in line to recognize much more value from their 2015 portfolios than they were in past eras — as evidenced by public market investors like mutual funds and hedge funds dipping down to improve their cost bases.

    对于“独角兽”公司，其报告的核心观点是晚期大额融资实际上代替了IPO。它同时承认，这些公司需要外部“输血”来维持。相比之下，金融危机以来早期融资的规模一直较为稳定。

    该风投公司认为，这种情况意味着私募市场投资者正普遍意识到，2015年其投资组合实现的价值要远高于以往。可以作为佐证的是，共同基金和对冲基金等公开市场投资者也纷纷扎入一级市场以改善成本水平。

    In short: This time is different because there are always differences between markets that are 15 years apart. What’s important, Andreessen Horowitz believes, is understanding these differences and how they should impact investment returns (positively or negatively). As the above slide shows, the firm remains bullish.

    But there are three big issues that, from my perspective the Andreessen Horowitz presentation glosses over a bit too quickly:

    1. While it is true that today’s tech P/E multiples are closer to the early 1990’s than the late 1990’s, a big part of that is because so few of the unicorns have gone public. So is it really an apples to apples comparison? Moreover, while it is true that public equity investors were the main beneficiaries of stock price run-ups for companies like Amazon and Microsoft , they also were the primary losers when a wider swath of VC-backed tech companies collapsed in late 2000 and 2001. When trying to understand the current lack of unicorn IPOs, one common explanation is that these companies, while typically older than 1999 IPO issuers, share traits like unprofitabilty and immature corporate governance. What if VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz are nearing the same type of inflection point that public equities investors hit in late 2000? Different but the same? The flip-side of hoarding value appreciation by keeping companies private is that you’re also increasing risk.

    2. In a related vein, Andreessen Horowitz’s presentation treats the relative lack of tech IPOs as a sign of market health. As I wrote last week, there is a much less charitable way to view it. Moreover, the lack of IPOs also means that the public markets have yet to validate many of these unicorn valuations.

    3. One difference between 1999 and today that wasn’t addressed in the presentation was that of founder control, or how VCs have much less influence over portfolio companies than they did in years past. Part of this, of course, is directly related to the success of Facebook — a founder-controlled company that opted not to sell out early (against the advice of most of its investors and advisors, save for the notable exception of Marc Andreessen) in an obvious stroke of business genius. It is unclear how this change will ultimately play out, but it certainly puts much more value on startup stock-picking than on operational value-add.

    简而言之，情况已今非昔比，因为相隔15年，市场一定会有变化。安德森•霍洛维茨公司认为，要点在于了解不同之处，及其会对投资回报带来哪些利弊。正如上面的幻灯片所显示的，该公司对市场仍然看多。

    但在笔者看来，这份报告对三个重要问题过于轻描淡写了，分别是：

    1.目前科技股的市盈率更接近20世纪90年代初的水平，而非20世纪90年代末水平，但这在很大程度上是因为现在上市的“独角兽”公司过少。所以我们不禁要问，这真的有可比性吗？公开市场投资者的确是亚马逊和微软等公司股价上涨的主要受益者，但2000年底到2001年有风投支持的大量科技公司崩盘时，他们也是主要受损者。另外，对于目前鲜有“独角兽”公司IPO的原因，一个常见解释是虽然现在的公司通常比1999年成功上市的那些公司存活得久一点，但在未实现盈利以及公司治理不完善等方面非常相似。那么，会不会安德森•霍洛维茨等风投公司就像2000年底的公开市场投资者那样，正在接近拐点？二者结果会殊途同归吗？这些公司不上市确实可以积累新增价值，但另一方面，风险也在增大。

    2. 按照同样的思路分析，这份报告称，科技公司IPO较少是市场健康的一个信号。上周我曾发表文章指出，深究起来这个问题远没有那么乐观。而且，IPO匮乏还意味着许多“独角兽”公司的估值尚未在公开市场得到验证。

    3. 安德森•霍洛维茨的报告还漏掉1999年和目前的一个不同之处，即创始人握有控制权，或者说，风投公司对投资对象的影响力远小于以往。当然，出现这种局面的部分原因和Facebook的成功有着直接关系。Facebook始终在创始人控制中，而且没有早早地把自己卖掉（这和大多数投资者以及顾问的意见相反，但安德森•霍洛维茨公司联合创始人马克·安德森是个例外），这俨然是商业天才的做派。我们还不清楚这样的变化最终会带来什么影响，但对VC来说，挑选创业公司变得更关键，价值大大超过了像以往那样通过经营创造增值的重要性。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    审校：夏林