Money New Venture Capital Funds Set Out to Raise (SEC Form D, quarterly)

## What this measures

The sum of the offering amounts (Item 13, the amount the fund says it will sell) on the quarter's new venture capital fund notices, in billions of U.S. dollars.

## Why it matters

What venture managers are setting out to raise, the money that will be invested in startups over the next several years. It turns before investing does.

## How it is made

Every company that sells securities under Rule 506 of Regulation D files a notice, Form D, with the SEC within 15 days of the first sale, and amends it at least once a year while the offering runs. The SEC's Division of Economic and Risk Analysis publishes every notice as filed in quarterly data sets (2009 onward). Palanor loads all of them. An offering is its SEC file number (an amendment, Form D/A, keeps the number of the notice it amends), and each filing reports the total sold so far, so the money a filing adds is its total minus the previous filing's.

**New funds** are original notices (Form D, not amendments) with the industry group "Pooled Investment Fund", by the fund type the filer ticks (Item 4: hedge fund, private equity fund, venture capital fund). Deal vehicles are counted apart by name: "a Series of", "Series … of", "SPV", "Co-Invest", "Syndicate" and "Feeder" (single-deal vehicles, series of a master LLC, and feeders into a main fund). Funds anywhere that file a U.S. Form D are counted, wherever they are based. Only notices with a definite offering amount count (about one in six venture fund notices since 2020 gives none). Notices from parallel vehicles of one fund, filed on the same day with the same amount, count once. Amounts of $10 billion or more are dropped (the largest real venture fund notice in the data sets is under $7 billion), and two notices read by hand and judged not to be real funds are left out.

## How to read it

A target, not money raised: funds often close below or above it. Read the trend; a few multi-billion growth funds make a quarter.

## What it does not cover

Form D is a notice of an exemption, not an announced funding round. Companies that raise without Rule 506, or file late or never, are missing, and some of the largest private companies raise without a notice of their own (only their investor vehicles file). Amounts are what companies report as sold, in the quarter the notice is filed, not when the money was wired. The industry group, state and fund type are the filer's own answers on the form and are not checked. Funds that give an indefinite offering amount are missing, and a fund's target is counted when it first files, however long it takes to raise.

## Source

Palanor calculation from SEC Form D filings (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Form D data sets; public domain).