That's not true because of the way the money comes in and out. They don't bring in the money for the entire fund in the beginning, or wait and pay it out at the

That's not true because of the way the money comes in and out. They don't bring in the money for the entire fund in the beginning, or wait and pay it out at the end. The actual time period over which that 3x would be realized is considerably shorter than 10 years. The 10 year mark is just where any going concerns that still haven't exited are purchased by a new fund or dealt with in some other way. Also, it's closer to 12% annually. And VCs don't take 30%. It's generally 20-25. For a detailed explanation, see this article which shows that a fund that returned 3x would net investors about 30% annually: http://www.vator.tv/news/show/2008-08-03-venture-capital-economics http://www.vator.tv/news/show/2008-08-03-venture-capital-eco...