Fund Performance: For WSIB, distributions rain down from Spark, Battery, Austin

Distributions from Spark Capital’s 2007 second fund spiked last year, while Battery Ventures, Austin Ventures and Insight Venture Partners returned hefty amounts of capital to LPs as well, according to a recent Washington State Investment Board portfolio report.

At the same time, Menlo Ventures chalked up a nice performance gain in its 2006 10th fund over the 12 months ended in September, the report showed.

The funds are among 19 venture investments with vintages from 2006 to 2010 in WISB’s Pathway and Invesco portfolios. The portfolios are almost evenly split among mega-scale funds of $900 million or more and medium-sized funds of $275 million to $750 million. (Performance between the two camps is pretty even.)

The top performer in the bunch is Spark Capital II with an IRR of 54.02 percent, as of September, and a massive jump in distributions over the 12 months, the report shows. The fund has generated $61.8 million in distributions from an investment of $16.4 million.

Its performance is several steps ahead of the number two on the list: Union Square Ventures 2008, which saw its IRR slump modestly to 34.69 percent and distributions remain minimal.

Battery Ventures VIII Side Fund continued its strong performance, with distributions climbing, and Insight Venture Partners VI advanced, both in performance and distributions.

Austin Ventures X saw distributions increase more than 2.5 percent and Menlo Ventures X saw a nice gain to an IRR of 6.53 percent.

Oak Investment Partners XIII saw its IRR decline sharply to 5.3 percent.

The accompanying table lists the 19 funds with their commitments, distributions and IRRs.