We mapped the investment syndicate relationships of over 120 of the most active venture capital and corporate venture capital investors to see which firms are close to one another and which ones are not. The result is the Venture Capital Investment Syndicate Heat Map. See it below.
Why analyze investment syndicates?
Analyzing investor syndicate network is extremely valuable – for both venture capital firms and LPs. For venture firms, analyzing syndicate behavior can help you identify potential follow-on investors or sources of dealflow (I see respected VC XYZ does a lot of deals with Micro-VC ABC. Perhaps we should build a relationship with Micro-VC ABC?). And since better networked VCs have better fund performance, tracking investment syndicates is important for limited partners to track as those with stronger networks generate better returns. And although conventional wisdom (and narrative) would suggest otherwise, not all VCs have strong networks.
The Venture Capital Investment Syndicate Heat Map highlights the relationship strength among these 120+ investors based on their investment overlap between 2010 and Q3’14.
Below is a portion of the investment syndicate heat map showing a subset of the most active venture firms (it’s not possible to show all 120 given space constraints so request the Excel file). Boxes with the darkest blue indicate a high rate of co-investment in companies (eg. Google Ventures & Kleiner Perkins), while lighter colors indicate less frequent (or no) co-investments (eg. Founders Fund and T-Venture) by unique company rounds over the period. Some highlights below:
- Union Square Ventures has done many more deals with Index Ventures than NY counterpart Lerer Hippeau Ventures.
- Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital are among Google Ventures most frequent VC deal syndicate partners. Of note, Kleiner and Google Ventures just recently co-led Slack‘s $120M Series D round (with A16Z participating) at a $1.12B valuation.
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