The General Partner of the fund usually has the right to extend the life of their fund for some period of time. Management fees for the time during the extensio

The General Partner of the fund usually has the right to extend the life of their fund for some period of time. Management fees for the time during the extension are negotiated with the Limited Partners. A cliche in the industry is that the average life of a ten year fund is thirteen years. The Limited Partners could force the dissolution of the fund after ten years--the remaining assets, including any private company stock, would be distributed to the LPs--but they generally don't want to deal with direct ownership of the equity of a company going sideways. VCs are usually better at finding creative ways to sell their piece of a business for some small amount of money, so they would rather the VC take the responsibility for it.