From Sutter Hill's Snowflake investment to Accel's bet on UiPath, Altos Ventures' bet on Roblox, and more, a look at VC firms poised to reap blockbuster profits
Sutter Hill's Snowflake bet eclipses some of the biggest returns in U.S. startup history — Nearly a decade ago … Tweets: @srussolillo , @carnage4life , @gavinsbaker , @hkanji , @mccventures , @workmj , @marcvarta , @wsj , @eliotwb , and @jasonzweigwsj Tweets: Steven Russolillo / @srussolillo : Some wild valuation stats here via @eliotwb Between 2002 & 2019, the median tech IPO price-to-sales ratio never cracked 12 for each calendar year. In 2020 the ratio was 23, by far the highest since the dot-com bubble popped. Thus far in 2021, it is 20. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : The tech industry now has two contradictory narratives happening at the same time. Big tech companies are making ridiculous amounts of money despite law of large numbers and that tech companies are overvalued given blockbuster IPOs. One of these must be wrong, right? https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Gavin Baker / @gavinsbaker : The numbers really are staggering. Multiple $8-$12 billion outcomes on ~$200 million of invested capital. https://www.wsj.com/... Hussein Kanji / @hkanji : Valuations have been rising particularly sharply relative to companies' revenue, a trend that echoes aspects of the dot-com bubble, and are a big factor behind the sudden run of highly valued companies listing on the stock market. https://www.wsj.com/... @mccventures : While tech companies have made blockbuster earnings announcements recently, many of them wouldn't have been possible without venture capital firms. VCs have been logging their own blockbuster profits cashing in on some major IPOs https://www.wsj.com/... #venturecapital Michael Jackson / @workmj : “for venture funds that were raised between 2010 & 2015, the median fund tracked by private investment data company Burgiss Group LLC has had an average annual return of nearly 16%. By contrast, the top 5% of funds have posted annual returns of over 42%”. https://www.wsj.com/... Marc Vartabedian / @marcvarta : With AirBnb, Sequoia turned $235 million into $14 billion. With DoorDash, it turned $240 million into $8.4 billion. @eliotwb offers a glimpse of current VC mega-profits https://www.wsj.com/... @wsj : The venture sector has long been defined by wins on disruptive tech companies, balanced by far more numerous losing bets. But recent investments have logged multibillion-dollar profits, setting firms up for their greatest returns since the dot-com boom. https://www.wsj.com/... Eliot Brown / @eliotwb : How to turn less than $200 M into $12 B https://www.wsj.com/... Jason Zweig / @jasonzweigwsj : A set of giant recent IPOs like Coinbase and Airbnb means venture-capital firms stand to make record-size profits once they sell https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ