A first-time fund can't show you a decade of realized returns. What it can show is how the manager talks about evidence, and whether disclosed numbers are being treated as facts or as promises.
Start with definitions. An up round, a signed commitment and a soft commitment are different events. Cash returned to LPs is different again. Young VC Lab funds are mostly too young for realized distributions, so early signals help you ask better questions without proving what your investment will return.
Then check what a dataset actually measures. Decile Group's emerging manager research tracks fundraising activity across hundreds of funds and describes correlations, not causes. Experience, sector focus and early LP commitments can appear alongside closed funds without guaranteeing that any manager will close, perform or return capital. Treat averages as context for your own diligence, not as a score for the person across the table.
For the underlying numbers and their limits, read emerging manager performance data unpacked. VC Lab is a community of 1,000+ investors in over 88 countries. This article is for educational purposes only and isn't investment advice.
