We begin the year incredibly excited by the prospects for 2026. This year has the potential to deliver some of the largest exits in the history of the VC asset class. Each of OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks and SpaceX are actively preparing to go public, with the combined exit value expected to be in the multiple trillions of dollars. For VenCap, these four companies alone represent approximately $121 million in gross value, equating to ~5% of total portfolio NAV.

With the theme of exits front of mind, we also wanted to reflect on the positive year for liquidity we saw in 2025. Across the VenCap portfolio, 2025 was the strongest year for distributions since 2021. Proceeds from the portfolio totalled $167 million, from which we were able to distribute $144 million net to our investors. At the portfolio level, distributions meaningfully outpaced capital calls, solidifying the 14th consecutive year in which VenCap’s portfolio has been cash flow positive. We believe this is driven by the Core Manager strategy and the benefits of building time-diversified portfolios with a clear focus on best-in-class venture firms.

We begin 2026 continuing to actively raise and invest our latest flagship fund, VenCap 18. As with each new VenCap fund, we intend to replicate the key factors described above; we focus on best-in-class venture firms through our continued dedication to the Core Manager strategy, and aim to boost the portfolio’s time diversity via the strategic use of secondary transactions. In 2025, we were also delighted to make significant strides in increasing our investors’ ability to utilise the benefit of secondaries more directly by launching a dedicated secondary fund, and by welcoming co-investors into a larger secondary transaction on a fee-free basis in Q4.

Access to top 1% companies drives consistent liquidity

The VenCap portfolio’s strong flow of distributions in 2025 was driven by multiple factors. Importantly, given that the bulk of value in VC is driven by IPOs, we continued to see a flow of capital through the steady sales of our managers’ existing public holdings. Top contributors to distributions received across the year in this regard included Rocket Lab, Samsara, Crowdstrike and Pinduoduo. This look-through public exposure still sits above $200 million at the beginning of 2026 and has been complemented over the last 12 months by a reacceleration in new IPO activity adding to the total. During 2025, VenCap’s underlying portfolio saw a number of significant public listings: in the US this included Figma, Circle, Netskope and Navan, with other key IPOs including Meesho’s domestic listing in India.

We also saw a number of large M&A outcomes convert into distributions in 2025. The key transactions were Meta’s strategic acquisition of 49% of Scale AI for $14 billion and CVC’s buyout of Dream Games’s external investors for $2.5 billion. Collectively, these transactions generated proceeds of over $30 million back to VenCap through its underlying managers. Separately, Google also announced it had agreed to acquire Wiz for $32 billion. The deal is expected to close in 2026 and is currently estimated to be worth $38 million back to VenCap based on the latest venture fund NAVs.

Finally, given the maturity of some assets which have remained private, we also saw meaningful amounts of proceeds generated from secondary share sales. The key drivers here were Stripe and XiaoHongShu, and whilst only a fraction of the underlying exposures were sold, proceeds back to VenCap from these two companies totalled over $15 million.

During a difficult time for liquidity in the private markets more broadly, we have been delighted to retain the cash flow positive nature of our portfolio in recent years. 2025 was a strong year for venture-backed exits and we see promising signs that the reacceleration in new exit activity will continue into 2026. We look forward to sharing more insights as the year goes on.

About VenCap

VenCap was founded in 1987 and has invested over $3.0 billion into approximately 500 venture capital funds. These funds are underpinned by over 17,000 portfolio companies including the likes of Google, Facebook, Nvidia, OpenAI, Spotify, Anthropic, Coinbase, Uber and Stripe. Over the last 15+ years, VenCap has focused its investment activities on a small group of “Core Managers”. These managers are established VC firms that have demonstrated a proven ability to consistently back the top 1% of companies that emerge from the VC ecosystem globally.

VenCap (Channel Islands) Limited is the Manager of VenCap Funds, regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. VenCap International plc is the Investment Advisor and is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. To find out more about us, please visit www.vencap.com.