The venture capital (VC) industry is grappling with its worst liquidity crisis in over a decade, as exits such as IPOs remain scarce in the aftermath of the boom years of 2020 and 2021. New data from PitchBook, cited by *The Wall Street Journal*, paints a stark picture of the situation in 2023.
U.S. venture capital firms invested $60 billion more into startups than they returned to their investors, marking the largest deficit in PitchBook’s 26-year history of tracking this data. Moreover, VCs returned only $26 billion in shares to their investors last year, the lowest total since 2011.
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While exits have slowed to a trickle, the industry has paradoxically seen record-high investment levels in recent years. The past three years collectively recorded the largest annual totals of venture funding in history, despite the limited liquidity events.
There is hope that the situation could improve in 2024. Companies such as Klarna and ServiceTitan are reportedly preparing IPOs, which may help reopen the exit market and begin to reduce the record deficit. For now, however, the VC industry faces mounting challenges in balancing its high levels of investment with its need to deliver returns to investors.
