Towards a Centralized Venture Capital Data Source - The Key to Increased Minority Access to Venture Capital?

In 2016, Steven Kaplan and Josh Lerner wrote about how the shortage of reliable and comprehensive industry data has created challenges for academics who wish to replicate or build on previous venture capital1 (VC) studies (414). The author of this paper experienced a similar lack of data first-hand while attempting to validate findings from a 2008 study which found that minority focused VC funds tend to earn equivalent or higher returns on their investments than the returns of the VC industry (Bates and Bradford 2008). The data required was virtually nonexistent, which prompted a search for databases which collect VC data. This paper is a call to action for greater VC fund financial transparency. This paper’s original goal of validating a prior study should be replicable by any researcher. The findings, which result from first-hand experiences and secondary research sources, conclude that while there are various companies and resources that offer VC data, none can provide the necessary compilation of VC fund IRR data efficiently or inexpensively. This suggests that such a collection is needed.