Fund Structure
Vintage Year
The year a VC fund made its first investment — used to benchmark fund performance against peer funds of the same vintage.
Vintage year is the year a VC fund closes and begins deploying capital into investments. It's used to group and benchmark funds against their peers: a 2018 vintage fund should be compared to other 2018 vintage funds (not 2021 vintage funds that benefited from a bull market). Vintage year matters because market conditions at time of investment significantly impact fund performance. 2008-2009 vintage funds (investing during the financial crisis) produced exceptional returns — they bought into companies at depressed valuations before a decade-long bull market. 2021 vintage funds (investing at peak valuations) have faced a much harder environment. LPs and benchmarking services like Cambridge Associates organize performance data by vintage year to enable apples-to-apples comparison.