Industry Performance

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Introduction

The BVCA – The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association – in conjunction with PwC is pleased to publish the 2019 Performance Measurement Survey. The Survey covers the performance of ‘independent’ UK venture capital and private equity funds, being funds raised from external investors and managed from the UK.

For this year’s survey we had 117 responses, out of 154 eligible GPs (76% response rate). In the report we cover 813 UK managed funds by BVCA members, including UK and non-UK venture capital and private equity investments. The results are provided net of fees and costs, including a provision for carried interest where appropriate.

Venture capital and private equity is a long-term asset class. As such, the since-inception return metric most appropriately reflects the performance of venture capital and private equity since it measures the performance from the start of a fund, rather than just recent years. When comparing venture capital and private equity with other asset classes, emphasis should be places on the longer-term results rather than the shorter-term measures.

Key points

• The UK’s private equity and venture capital industry has continued to demonstrate its resilience by returning substantial amounts of cash distributions to investors. Over the longer-term, venture capital and private equity continues to comfortably outperform public markets.


• The five-year and 10-year annual returns were 20.1% and 14.2% respectively, compared to the FTSE All-Share, which returned 7.5% and 8.1% to investors over the same respective time periods.


• Venture capital post 2002 vintage funds once again showed strong performance over the short- and long-term, with three, five and ten-year IRRs at 14.6%, 15.1% and 13.2% respectively.


• Private equity performance was also resilient with the ten-year IRRs for small, mid and large transactions at 14.9%, 12.8% and 14.8% respectively.


• The most appropriate measure of the long-term performance of venture capital and private equity is on a since-inception basis. We present this on a vintage basis, as well as for the portfolio data set as a whole. The survey shows that since 2008, all vintages have generated since-inception IRRs in excess of 14%, with the portfolio as a whole at 14.6%.

Launch webinar

Our launch webinar explores the full set of results from the BVCA’s 2019 Performance Measurement Survey.

Michael Moore, BVCA Director General was joined by Richard McGuire, Private Equity Funds Leader, PwC; Mark Drugan, Managing Director, Capital Dynamics; and Fraser McLatchie, Director, SEP, to review the performance of UK private equity and venture funds across different vintages and time periods, looking at both IRRs and multiples. In addition to the data presented in the written report, the panel also present a PME analysis.

This webinar was broadcast live to BVCA members on 21 October at 09:30am. BVCA members can view a recording of this using the link below, visible once logged in. If you have any questions about this webinar, please contact research@bvca.co.uk.