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
Hearst Ventures vs Kairos
Not ranked
Whole-book follow-on hit rate 58.3% (7 of 12 labeled deals). 95% Wilson interval 32.0%–80.7%. Vintage-weighted base rate 42.4%. This is not a fund return.
Not ranked. A book needs at least 15 labeled deals with a vintage base rate. This one has 12.
Vs same-vintage base rate
+15.9 pp
58.3% on 12 deals vs 42.4%
Vs median VC book
+24.6 pp
77.8% on 9 deals vs 53.2%
Vs top-quartile VC
+9.1 pp
77.8% on 9 deals vs 68.7%
Vs Y Combinator
+12.6 pp
75.0% on 8 deals vs 62.4%
Median and top-quartile VC benchmarks exist only through 2015. That comparison uses 9 of 12 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
9
Mean model percentile
72
Flagged deals
11/1 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 18.2% (2 of 11). 95% Wilson interval 5.1%–47.7%.
Vs exit base rate
+6.3 pp
18.2% on 11 deals vs 11.9%
Vs median VC exit book
—
No overlapping vintages
Vs top-quartile exit book
—
No overlapping vintages
Companies
12 labeled follow-on deals, 0 matched without an observable label (dropped, not counted as failures).
| Company | Vintage | Follow-on | Kairos percentile | Flagged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BuzzFeedbuzzfeed.com | 2008 | Yes | 100 | Yes |
| Spirespire.com | 2008 | No | 97 | — |
| Hootsuitehootsuite.com | 2009 | Yes | 94 | — |
| WorldWide Biggiesworldwidebiggies.com | 2007 | Yes | 82 | — |
| Stylus Mediastylus.com | 2012 | No | 80 | — |
| Sling Mediaslingbox.com | 2004 | Yes | 68 | — |
| Gazillion Entertainmentgazillion.com | 2010 | Yes | 48 | — |
| Relationship Sciencerelsci.com | 2010 | Yes | 41 | — |
| Local.comlocal.com | 2007 | Yes | 40 | — |
| XM Radioxmradio.com | 2002 | No | — | — |
| iVillageivillage.com | 2001 | No | — | — |
| Drugstore.comdrugstore.com | 2001 | No | — | — |