????如上圖所示，資本的過度供應導致回報在2002和2003年暴跌。這兩年-20%的回報是整個十年低迷回報的主要推動力。另一個短暫的下行區間就是全球金融危機，風投行業輕松地度過了（并不存在任何系統風險）。十年間剩下的時間里，風投11%-17%的凈回報率中規中矩，雖然不那么光彩奪目，但比多數投資者在公開的股票市場7%的期望回報率還是高出4%-10%。而且這只是平均回報，某些基金表現還要更好。

????從1998-2000年得到（或者說再次得到）的主要教訓就是：規模在1億-4億美元之間的風投基金的回報率較高。資金的瘋狂涌入產生了許多10億美元級別的風投基金。但它們并沒能實現高回報。哈佛商學院（Harvard Business School）的約什?勒莫爾在最近的一篇論文中寫道：“我們發現那些具有較高平均內部回報率的有限合伙公司通常投資于較小型和規模增長較緩慢的基金…”

????硅谷銀行（Silicon Valley Bank）在2009年分析了這一“小就是好”的現象，得出結論是：和大型基金相比，小型的基金有5倍的可能實現所謂的“風投回報”（2倍以上的凈回報率）。考夫曼基金會對其風險基金組合的分析肯定了硅谷銀行的發現。

????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: