史丹佛大学与俄亥俄州立大学的学者共同发表了一份针对美国前百大风投公司的深入绩效排名。研究证实，风投行业的收益遵循「幂律定律」，即行业内大约 90% 的利润仅由 5% 的风投公司所创造，这对于资本分配者而言是一个至关重要的信息，同时普通投资者也很难进入这些顶级基金。
随著 SpaceX、OpenAI 和 Anthropic 等巨型初创企业的估值飙升，大型风投公司越来越倾向于将资金集中在少数后期大型交易中，这使它们逐渐演变为关注管理费的资产管理机构，模糊了风投、私募股权与传统基金管理之间的界限，而未来的纯风投机会可能存在于新兴的小型公司中。
Entrepreneur Greg Isenberg's social media post about his bizarre pitching experience to a top venture capital firm sparked widespread discussion, revealing strange interpersonal dynamics within the industry. Despite unusual behaviors, a tiny fraction of VC firms still generate spectacular returns, whereas the overall distribution of returns remains highly uneven.
A comprehensive ranking of the top 100 U.S. VC firms, co-published by scholars from Stanford and Ohio State, confirms that venture capital returns follow the Power Law, where approximately 90 percent of the industry's profits are generated by just 5 percent of the firms. This poses a major access challenge for institutional allocators not already in these top-tier funds.
As valuations of giant start-ups like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic surge, established VCs are increasingly concentrating their capital on massive late-stage deals, transforming some of them into fee-focused asset managers. While the boundaries between venture capital and traditional asset management blur, the most promising pure VC plays may now lie in smaller, emerging firms.