2021年份DPI较弱并非其看起来的警告信号

The 2021 Vintage’s WeakDPI Is Not the Warning SignIt Looks Like Institutional Research Group Kyle Stanford, CAIADirector, VC Researchkyle.stanford@pitchbook.com Caleb WilkinsData Analystpbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.comPublished on August 6, 2026 The returns on 2021 vintage US VC funds are not great,but what do they say about future returns? Contents Key takeaways Key takeaways1The weak link between early- andlate-term DPI2Higher entry prices are coming forsmaller funds first5Analyst outlook7 •DPI has replaced IRR as the market’s preferred metric because liquidity, not papergains, now determines winning managers.As distributions have slowed, firms ableto show cash-on-cash returns have raised capital far more easily than emergingmanagers still sitting on 2020 and 2021 vintage funds without distributions. •The 2021 vintage’s 0.05x year-five average DPI is the weakest of any vintage since1997, but it is a poor predictor of terminal returns.The correlation between year-five and year-10 DPI is weak, best illustrated by the 2012 vintage, which posted anaverage DPI of just 0.15x at year five yet led all vintages with a 2.04x average DPIby year 10. •TVPI tells a steadier story than DPI.At 1.21x, the 2021 vintage’s average TVPI ismiddling but has held up without a sharp drawdown, a signal that overcapitalizationin 2021 and 2022 gave portfolio companies enough runway to avoid the kind ofmarkdown event that hit the 1999 vintage after the dot-com crash. •The extreme capital concentration in 2021 will shape how the vintage isremembered.Funds of $250 million or more absorbed 70.6% of all commitmentsthat year, including $52.5 billion in funds of $1 billion or more, meaning large-fundperformance will carry disproportionate weight in the 2021 vintage’s averagesgoing forward. •Large funds’ push into pre-seed and seed investments has not paid off yet.Despite large funds aggressively expanding into earlier-stage deals as the marketcorrected, funds under $250 million are still producing a marginally stronger TVPIfor the 2021 vintage, suggesting that the higher entry valuations paid by largermanagers have muted their markups so far. The weak link between early- and late-term DPI 2021 vintage US VC funds have an average DPI of 0.05x in their fifth year. That is thelowest fifth-year DPI for any vintage since 1997. It is an easy number to single out, andthe past five years have been challenging for VC, to say the least. The low DPI mightraise an alarm, as these funds are roughly halfway through their terms. Yet usingcurrent DPI as a predictor of end-of-term fund returns is nuanced. DPI has been the measurement of choice for VC in this liquidity environment. Themarket has turned away from IRR as time has lengthened and worn down the figure.As liquidity has dropped, firms able to show their cash-on-cash returns have separatedthemselves from the pack. That is a big reason that established firms have had suchan easier time fundraising over the past few years. Many emerging managers are stuckin 2020 and 2021 funds with few distributions to show. It turns out that year-five DPIs are not a strong indicator of end-of-fund returns. Since1997, average year-five DPIs across vintages have ranged from 0.05x for the 2021vintage to 1.00x for the 1997 vintage. These multiples reflect the market environmentat the time, but as predictors, they show weak correlation with future distributions.1997 funds benefited from the pre-market-crash dot-com era. 2000 funds had theopposite experience, reaching an average DPI of only 0.09x during their first five years.The only other vintages failing to reach 0.10x in five years are 2006 and now 2021. Five years is still early for VC funds. Most feature 10-year terms with severalextensions, and small funds may still rely on just a few exits to return capital. This isespecially important in the current market, where companies are staying private longerand fewer investors are making their first checks into midstage companies, whichnaturally have shorter times to exit. The median time from founding to exit for VC- backed companies is over five years, and the vast majority of short-term exits returnlittle to investors. 75% of M&A activity over the past couple of years has occurredbefore a Series B round was raised. That raises questions about whether the 10-year fund lifecycle should continue to be the standard. SpaceX may not be the bestexample, but it was 22 years old when it went public. A better indicator of the straininvestors feel is that more than half of unicorns have been in portfolios for at leastnine years. What we can see in the data is that there is a relatively weak positive correlationbetween five-year and 10-year DPI multiples. 1997’s 1.00x five-year average returnled to just a 1.19x 10-year average return. 2012 hit the five-year mark with just a 0.15xaverage DPI, yet the vintage led all 10-year average DPI multiples at 2.04x. For 2021vintage funds, the lack of a clear correlatio