Reconstructed first-round book from the research data, not a scrape of today's website. Public portfolio pages over-report winners, and this graph has the same public-data bias. Investor edges are essentially Crunchbase through late 2015, plus Y Combinator.
Research book · 3-year follow-on
Alta Partners vs Kairos
21st percentile
Whole-book follow-on hit rate 42.9% (15 of 35 labeled deals). 95% Wilson interval 28.0%–59.1%. Vintage-weighted base rate 41.4%. This is not a fund return.
Among 233 eligible VC books with at least 15 labeled deals. Published raw-excess percentile in the research file: 32nd percentile.
Vs same-vintage base rate
+1.4 pp
42.9% on 35 deals vs 41.4%
Vs median VC book
-8.7 pp
41.9% on 31 deals vs 50.6%
Vs top-quartile VC
-24.2 pp
41.9% on 31 deals vs 66.1%
Vs Y Combinator
-21.6 pp
40.7% on 27 deals vs 62.4%
Median and top-quartile VC benchmarks exist only through 2015. That comparison uses 31 of 35 labeled deals. Later deals stay in the hit rate and the base-rate comparison.
Ranked when at least 15 labeled deals have a vintage base rate. Rank is the average-rank percentile of shrunk excess (20 pseudo-deals at that book's vintage base rate) among eligible VC books that clear the same minimum. 100 is best. The whole book is never compared to Kairos's top-50 hit rate.
What Kairos would have said
Scores are the model’s percentile at each company’s first observed funding event, not at a later round. That matches this fund’s entry only when the fund was in the first-round syndicate. A deal is flagged when its percentile clears that vintage’s top-50 cutoff. The whole book is not compared to the top-50 hit rate.
Deals with a score
31
Mean model percentile
51
Flagged deals
10/1 followed on
Five-year exit, secondary
Five-year exit labels are observable mainly for 2005–2010. A missing later exit is not counted as a failure. This panel is not the ranking.
Hit rate 15.6% (5 of 32). 95% Wilson interval 6.9%–31.8%.
Vs exit base rate
+1.7 pp
15.6% on 32 deals vs 14.0%
Vs median VC exit book
—
No overlapping vintages
Vs top-quartile exit book
—
No overlapping vintages
Companies
35 labeled follow-on deals, 0 matched without an observable label (dropped, not counted as failures).
| Company | Vintage | Follow-on | Kairos percentile | Flagged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allakosallakos.com | 2012 | Yes | 98 | — |
| OPAL Therapeutics | 2005 | No | 98 | Yes |
| RedShift Systemsredshiftsystems.com | 2006 | No | 95 | — |
| PneumRxpneumrx.com | 2007 | No | 94 | — |
| aTyr Pharmaatyrpharma.com | 2007 | Yes | 88 | — |
| SARcode Biosciencesarcode.com | 2006 | Yes | 86 | — |
| Netli | 2006 | No | 84 | — |
| Intradigm Corporationintradigm.com | 2006 | Yes | 81 | — |
| Calistoga Pharmaceuticalscalistogapharma.com | 2007 | Yes | 78 | — |
| Sunesis Pharmaceuticalssunesis.com | 2009 | Yes | 78 | — |
| Carbylan Therapeuticscarbylan.com | 2007 | No | 77 | — |
| Litheralithera.com | 2012 | Yes | 75 | — |
| Foldrx Pharmaceuticalsfoldrx.com | 2010 | No | 60 | — |
| Excaliard Pharmaceuticalsexcaliard.com | 2007 | No | 60 | — |
| Cerenis Therapeuticscerenis.com | 2006 | No | 49 | — |
| Coapt Systemscoaptsystems.com | 2003 | No | 45 | — |
| Aegis Lightwaveaegislightwave.com | 2006 | No | 44 | — |
| Aerovanceaerovance.com | 2007 | Yes | 42 | — |
| Trevenatrevenainc.com | 2008 | Yes | 40 | — |
| Esperion Therapeuticsesperion.com | 2008 | No | 36 | — |
| Sierra Surgical | 2007 | Yes | 34 | — |
| Paracor Medicalparacormedical.com | 2007 | No | 34 | — |
| TransMedicstransmedics.com | 2004 | No | 21 | — |
| agámi Systemsagami.com | 2007 | No | 19 | — |
| iSOCOisoco.com | 2006 | No | 13 | — |
| Vaccsysvaccsys.com | 2008 | No | 11 | — |
| Ceregeneceregene.com | 2004 | Yes | 11 | — |
| Kiadis Pharmakiadis.com | 2007 | No | 9 | — |
| MacroGenicsmacrogenics.com | 2006 | No | 7 | — |
| Nereus Pharmaceuticalsnereuspharm.com | 2005 | Yes | 4 | — |
| ChemoCentryxchemocentryx.com | 2004 | Yes | 3 | — |
| nCircle Network Securityncircle.com | 2001 | Yes | — | — |
| Xeleratedxelerated.com | 2001 | Yes | — | — |
| Phenomixphenomixcorp.com | 2002 | No | — | — |
| Agensysagensys.com | 2002 | No | — | — |