Venture Capital Fund Advisers (SEC Exempt Reporting, U.S. count, monthly)

## What this measures

The number of exempt reporting advisers that check Form ADV Item 2.B(1): exempt from registration as an adviser solely to one or more venture capital funds, as defined in SEC rule 203(l)-1. Monthly, from May 2012.

## Why it matters

This is the closest public count of venture capital firms in the United States and of foreign venture firms raising from U.S. investors. It shows how many managers are in the business, which matters for competition for deals and for limited partners' capital.

## How to read it

Higher means more venture capital managers. Read it as a slow-moving level; its monthly change is the net of new firms (see the new venture capital adviser series) and firms that close, register or stop reporting.

## What it does not say

Answers come from each adviser's latest Form ADV, and most advisers update the form once a year, within 90 days of their fiscal year end. A month's figure therefore mixes answers from different dates, and the annual filing season (March and April for calendar-year advisers) moves it most. State-registered advisers (generally those with less than $100 million under management, registered with a state securities regulator) are not on the lists. A few months are missing from the SEC archive: most of the second half of 2006 and early 2007, a few months in 2007 and 2008, January 2019, and October and November 2025 (the last two during federal government shutdowns). Venture firms that register with the SEC (often the largest, which also run other strategies) are not counted here, and an adviser can check both the venture capital and the small private fund exemption.

## Source

Palanor calculation from the SEC's monthly lists "Information About Registered Investment Advisers and Exempt Reporting Advisers" (sec.gov/data-research/sec-markets-data/information-about-registered-investment-advisers-exempt-reporting-advisers), U.S. government work in the public domain; the SEC asks for citation as the source. Loaded and refreshed monthly by Palanor.