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
DAG Ventures vs Kairos
20th percentile
Whole-book follow-on hit rate 47.1% (8 of 17 labeled deals). 95% Wilson interval 26.2%–69.0%. Vintage-weighted base rate 45.1%. 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: 33rd percentile.
Vs same-vintage base rate
+2.0 pp
47.1% on 17 deals vs 45.1%
Vs median VC book
-10.1 pp
47.1% on 17 deals vs 57.1%
Vs top-quartile VC
-25.0 pp
47.1% on 17 deals vs 72.0%
Vs Y Combinator
-25.0 pp
43.8% on 16 deals vs 68.7%
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
16
Mean model percentile
54
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 41.7% (5 of 12). 95% Wilson interval 19.3%–68.0%.
Vs exit base rate
+27.5 pp
41.7% on 12 deals vs 14.2%
Vs median VC exit book
—
No overlapping vintages
Vs top-quartile exit book
—
No overlapping vintages
Companies
17 labeled follow-on deals, 1 matched without an observable label (dropped, not counted as failures).
| Company | Vintage | Follow-on | Kairos percentile | Flagged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cracklecrackle.com | 2005 | No | 98 | Yes |
| D2Sdesign2silicon.com | 2009 | Yes | 82 | — |
| Langolango.me | 2007 | No | 75 | — |
| Xoomsysxoomsys.com | 2007 | No | 72 | — |
| Birstbirst.com | 2012 | Yes | 71 | — |
| Alta Devicesaltadevices.com | 2011 | No | 68 | — |
| Trapeze Networkstrapezenetworks.com | 2005 | Yes | 63 | — |
| Mbloxmblox.com | 2004 | Yes | 63 | — |
| Zimbrazimbra.com | 2006 | No | 62 | — |
| Clickatellclickatell.com | 2011 | No | 60 | — |
| AOptix Technologiesaoptix.com | 2007 | Yes | 50 | — |
| Picarropicarro.com | 2012 | No | 42 | — |
| 1Life Healthcare1life.com | 2013 | Yes | 19 | — |
| agámi Systemsagami.com | 2007 | No | 19 | — |
| AdorStyleador.com | 2012 | Yes | 14 | — |
| RMI Corporationrmicorp.com | 2006 | No | 3 | — |
| Yubyub.com | 2013 | Unobserved | — | — |
| ARMO BioSciencesarmobio.com | 2013 | Yes | — | — |