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Will NEA return it's $2.5 billion dollar fund

This is a convincing argument by NEA's Grossi, but for the life of me, I don't see how this gets returned 2-3x. What am I missing? There are only so many venture returns to go around, and A16Z has $2.7B, Bessemer has $1.6B, Greylock is north of $1B, Sequoia and Accel the same.

8:02 PM Oct 07 2012

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It's a bet they can find the next eBay, Google, or Facebook.

Does Benchmark or Kleiner Perkins have a mega fund?

8:31 PM Oct 07 2012

Benchmark is always around $400m, give or take. KP is usually the same but added "digital growth" recently, as did Greylock and Accel.

7:31 AM Oct 08 2012

This is part ofthe problem with using "fund size" at all. KPCB has raised $2.3B over the same time period (2008-2011) that NEA raised $2.5B but they're considered a "small fund". Sequoia over that period (if you include Sequoia India which is sometimes listed as part of it and sometimes separately) is $2.9B. Bessemer raised $4.2B but that's since the window happens to catch more than one of their large funds.

10:17 AM Oct 08 2012

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Tom, great point.

10:25 AM Oct 08 2012

Here's an idea for them; do an order of magnitude more than the start fund and offer a top incubator / accelrator program's startups $1.5m in an uncapped note.

11:02 AM Oct 08 2012

"Aggregated Venture Capital"

11:22 AM Oct 08 2012

An interesting experiment, no? And perhaps just as probable to return the fund as their current investment thesis.

11:35 AM Oct 08 2012

David, I'm not sure it's a good experiment.

Start Fund has PG working full-time to qualify the startups invested in.

Where would they find the people to do the same for such an experiment?

5:56 PM Oct 08 2012

500 startups, TechStars, AngelPad.

6:48 PM Oct 08 2012

Those aren't good bets. None of them have had a home run like Dropbox or Airbnb.

10:03 PM Oct 08 2012

Which is why the time to partner is now; before they do have a homerun. Or 500 singles.

10:22 PM Oct 08 2012

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