Fund performance: Union Square, IA lead late-decade venture portfolio at UTIMCO

Funds from Union Square Ventures, IA Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures head up a late-decade venture portfolio at the University of Texas Investment Management Company.

The portfolio is made up of 2008 to 2011 vintages and favors smaller funds with an early or seed-stage approach to investing.

Sixty percent of the funds are less than $200 million in size and an additional third are between $450 million and $200 million. Only the $900 million Austin Ventures X strays from the smaller fund strategy.

Just over half of the funds focus on early or seed-stage investing, and 20 percent are late-stage investors.

Overall, the portfolio has had strong results. More than half the funds had double-digit IRRs as of May and another three were in the high single digits. Only one fund was in the red.

The portfolio leader by a solid margin was the Union Square Opportunity Fund from 2010 with an IRR of 60.12 percent as of May, according to a recent portfolio report. The fund’s distributions are more than 2.5x capital.

The $135 million fund invested in Lending Club, which went IPO in December 2014, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

Holding second place was IA Ventures Strategies Fund I, also from 2010, with an IRR of 44.54 percent, the report shows. Distributions were strong at 4.2x contributions.

IA’s second fund followed with an IRR of 29.33 percent. The 2011 IA Venture Strategies Fund II had yet to distribute capital and pulled back significantly over the previous 15 months, when its IRR was 61.48 percent.

Morgenthaler Venture Partners IX wasn’t far behind with an IRR of 28 percent.

The portfolio has other nicely performing funds from Sante Ventures, Sofinnova Ventures and Union Square. Funds from Foundry Group, True Ventures and Correlation Ventures round out the holdings.

All 15 funds are included in the attached spreadsheet with IRRs, distributions and commitments.