For almost 15 years, most venture capital funds have failed to outperform a public stock market index. This provocative and widely-read report presents data from the Kauffman Foundation’s 20 years of investing in venture capital funds to show how pension funds, university endowments, and foundations are very often shortchanged by their investments in VC.

The report includes industry data, academic research, and interviews with VCs and limited partners to challenge the narrative fallacies about the benefits of venture capital as an investment class. The report describes the relatively poor performance of most venture capital funds, the mis-alignment created by the industry standard “2 and 20” VC compensation model, and the weak fiduciary oversight provided by most Boards of Trustees and Investment Committees.