Stock Price Return and Variance of Unlisted Start-ups

This study measures the realized rate of return of venture capital(VC) fund at the level of investment agreement(as opposed to fund level returns reported by most of the relevant studies). It also measures the stock price return of the VC’s portfolio firms (unlisted start-ups) at firm level(as opposed to fund returns) and its variance for the first time using unique data of the VC funds held by the Korean Venture Capital Association. Results of the analysis confirm that VC fund returns exceed individual stock price returns. Additionally, it is confirmed that VC portfolio firms exhibit a positive relationship between risk and return measured by total risk. Finally, we find that stock price returns at firm level are lower than that implied by the associated levels of risk. Consequently, this may make individual investors hesitate to directly buy unlisted startups’ stocks even when investment in individual startup companies guarantees high risk-high returns relationship.