風投行業的結構正在發生變化

????不過，資金集中到較大基金手中還有另一個重要影響因素，那就是許多傳統風投公司現在都開始設立“機會型基金”或者“成長型基金”。最終數據看起來側重于大型基金，而實際上其中也包括了投入傳統風投公司的資金，這些公司正以更大的力度來更多地捕捉私募基金上市之前的價值。

????在風投行業，很少有人公開討論這一結構性變化。

????今后的機遇

????拜熱衷于社交網絡，傾向于刷卡消費，信奉移動優先原則的消費者所賜，許多初創公司正在以更快的速度發展壯大。這些趨勢表明，許多初創公司在需要上市前就已經擁有了非常多的資金。如果愿意，許多這樣的公司都能實現盈利。但市場看中的是高增長，而非短期盈利能力。只要還有私募資金可用，這些公司就愿意更長久地保持私營身份，而不是急于上市。

????因此，2008-2009年經濟衰退以來，公司上市前（pre-IPO）融資規模增長了一倍，融資中位數從4900萬美元上升到了2013年的1.01億美元。風投行業的整體趨勢形成了一種新氣象。互聯網泡沫時期的懶惰致富經歷一度讓風投行業偏離航行，現如今，風投業已經開始自我矯正。

????風投行業最大的變化源自技術革新自身，風投人士既目睹了這一切，又幸運地從中受益。我曾經在本專欄探討過這些重大技術變化怎樣改變了風頭行業，詳見《開源及水平計算如何催生了微風投市場》一文。2007年是座分水嶺。經過F8開發者大會和該公司在大學校園的大力推廣，Facebook成為主流社交網絡。Twitter在西南偏南大會（SxSW）上得到科技界廣泛認同，并在風投人士佛瑞德?威爾遜牽頭下進行了首輪風投融資。iPhone也在當年上市。

????廉價云計算、社交網絡以及移動化的種子已經在那時種下。接下來，2008年金融危機引發的風暴卷走了風投行業中大部分陳舊而腐朽的業務，并且開啟了一個新階段。紅杉資本于2008年發布的著名報告《安息吧好時光》（RIP Good Times）也許是對這個階段的最佳寫照——現在看來，這篇報告具有一些諷刺意味。初創公司融資的“大爆發”始于2009年3月前后，也就是5年多以前，至今尚未衰退。

????廉價、移動化、社交化、全球化、規?；?、全天候在線以及一鍵購物已經讓我們這個時代那些最成功的企業在發展初期就達到了前所未有的規模，同時將大量價值從上市后投資者那里轉移到了上市前投資者手中。思科（Cisco）、亞馬遜和微軟（Microsoft）的IPO市值分別為2億、4億和8億美元，而領英（LinkedIn）、Twitter和Facebook的IPO市值分別達到了43億、180億和1040億美元。因此，DropBox、Airbnb、Pinterest、Maker Studios、Uber、Lyft、SnapChat、Tinder、Waze和KickStarter等公司的迅速崛起，一直都是私募市場投資者的福音。

????But there is another major factor at play in the concentration of capital in larger funds: many traditional VC firms were now setting up “opportunity funds” or “growth funds.” The data ends up looking skewed towards larger funds when it actually involves traditional VC funds now geared up to take capture more of the value in private funds before they went public.

????This is a structural shift in our industry few have talked about publicly.

????The Opportunity Set Ahead

????The trends of faster-growing startups due to social networking, credit card enabling and mobile-first consumers, show many startups becoming very large financially before needing to go public. Many of them could be profitable if they chose to. But markets value high growth over short-term profitability. As long as private-market capital is available, these companies would rather remain private for longer before going public.

????Thus, the amount of money that companies have raised before going public doubled since the Great Recession from $49 million median financing pre-IPO to $101 million in 2013. The overall trends in our industry have breathed a new life into the venture capital industry. From a period of veering off target with the laziness & riches of the dotcom era, our industry has righted itself.

????The biggest changes in our industry have been driven by technical changes themselves to which venture capitalists are observers and fortunate beneficiaries. I highlighted how these tectonic technical shifts have altered the VC industry in this post: How Open-Source & Horizontal Computing Spawned the Micro VC Market. 2007 was the watershed year. Facebook went mainstream after the F8 conference and its big push beyond college campuses. Twitter spread through the tech crowds at SxSW and raised its first venture capital round led by Fred Wilson. The iPhone was released.

????The seeds of cheap cloud computing, social networking & mobile were planted and then the 2008 financial crisis brought a hurricane that swept much of the old, dead brush from the venture capital industry and ushered in a new phase perhaps best punctuated by Sequoia’s famous and now ironic 2008 presentation “RIP Good Times.” The “big boom” in startup financing started around March 2009?—?more than 5 years ago?—?and hasn’t abated.

????Cheap, mobile, social, global, massive, always-on, one-click-purchase has led to the most successful companies of our era hitting unprecedented scale early in their development and has massively shifted the value captured from post-IPO investors to pre-IPO investors. Whereas the market caps of Cisco, Amazon and Microsoft at IPO were $200 million, $400 million and $800 million respectively, the market caps of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook were $4.3 billion, $18 billion and $104 billion. Thus the rapid rise of DropBox, Airbnb, Pinterest, Maker Studios, Uber, Lyft, SnapChat, Tinder, Waze, KickStarter and so many more great standouts that have been a boon to private-market investors.