VC performance report: Andreessen Horowitz lags Sequoia, Benchmark, and Founders Fund, with ROIs of 2.6x, 2.3x, and 1.7x for its three funds
Rare look at startup investors' performance shows Andreessen Horowitz lags Sequoia, Benchmark, Founders Fund — Andreessen Horowitz's …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Journal's data lands mid-argument: within days, Both Sides of the Table published an LP case for backing Andreessen Horowitz anyway, arguing that three-fund ROI snapshots miss what a full-service platform firm is building toward. The report gave that debate its first hard numbers — 2.6x, 2.3x, and 1.7x against Sequoia, Benchmark, and Founders Fund.
What came after validates why the comparison was contested rather than settled: a16z kept scaling, growing its investment team to 70 in four years — up 170% — while Benchmark held its traditional small-fund line, a split the Times later framed as two opposing VC models. By 2025, leaked internal decks claimed $25B in net returns since 2009, including $11.2B in 2021 — the counter-narrative to exactly this kind of third-party scorecard.
First-order effects
- Limited partners deciding on re-ups now have comparable cross-firm ROI data for the first time, forcing a16z to defend its model on platform value rather than fund-level multiples.
Second-order effects
- Benchmark's small-scale approach becomes the explicit alternative benchmark for LPs, sharpening the industry split between craft funds and a16z's expansion strategy — which it answered with rapid headcount growth.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, venture performance becomes a narrative contest as much as a measured one: firms with scale ambitions invest in their own return storytelling (the later leaked decks) because third-party scorecards will always flatter smaller, concentrated funds.
The trend: Venture capital is splitting into two durable models — concentrated small funds that win on multiples and platform-scale firms that win on brand and network — with each side increasingly curating its own performance evidence.