Published on Aug 2025
While Equitybee platform investments have outperformed at providing liquidity, the broader venture capital market remains challenged. According to PitchBook’s Q2 2025 report, IPOs are reopening but at significantly reduced valuations. Liquidity is also highly concentrated: AI, defense, and crypto companies dominate exits, while most sectors remain constrained.
Distributions to investors remain muted. PitchBook reports a 12-month distribution yield of just 10.9%, well below the decade average of ~19.6%, and notes that the 2019 vintage cohort has posted the weakest five-year DPI since 2006. Carta’s Q1 2025 benchmarks tell the same story: even at the top decile, DPI for recent vintages struggles to surpass 0.5x, with fewer than 40% of funds from 2019-2020 having returned any capital at all.
Against this backdrop of scarce liquidity and slow distributions, Equitybee has delivered realized returns at a faster rate, demonstrating the structural design to improve access and potential return opportunities for investors.
Methodology Notes
This report compares the realized performance of Equitybee platform investments with widely recognized VC industry benchmarks.
•
Equitybee DPI represents aggregated realized distributions to investors across the Equitybee platform, measured as of July 31, 2025.
•
PitchBook benchmarks encompass fund vintages from 2018-2024 across over 1,200 U.S. venture funds as of Q2 2025.
•
Vintage years are defined as the first year a fund or Equitybee investment round began deploying capital.
•
DPI = Distributions to Paid-In Capital, calculated as total cash returned to investors divided by total invested capital.
Previous reports
Startup employees often receive stock options as part of their compensation. To convert these options into shares, employees must exercise their right to purchase these stock options, which involves significant upfront capital. Many employees cannot afford to do this, missing out on participating in the potential future success of the companies. Equitybee’s investors can provide the needed capital, allowing employees to exercise their options. In return, investors receive their initial investment, annual interest, and a percentage of the equity's value upon a successful liquidity event, such as an IPO or acquisition. This creates a mutually beneficial opportunity in a largely untapped market worth over $150 billion*.
Despite the aforementioned distribution drought from traditional US venture capital funds (mainly stemming from the lack of IPOs), Equitybee investments have continued to generate liquidity from a myriad of liquidity event types. This well-balanced mix means that Equitybee investors don’t need to rely on a hot IPO market to receive distributions. Additionally, tender offers (Equitybee’s historically highest performing liquidity event type) are a mostly unique exit route tied to the funding of employee stock options, which typically traditional VCs don’t have access to.
*Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC) is calculated as the net proceeds distributed to investors divided by their original investment. In the Equitybee model, net proceeds typically comprise the original principal, accrued annual interest (ranging from 3% to 5%), and the investor’s share of the equity value at the liquidity event (typically 20% to 45% of the funded shares). A 5% carried interest is applied to the accrued interest and the equity value share at distribution.
**Time to liquidity Indicates average time from investment date to distribution date, sourced from Equitybee’s proprietary data
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Private placements are speculative, illiquid, contain substantial risk and may result in the complete loss of capital to the investor. Consult your tax accountant as there may be tax considerations on profit amounts. Results may vary with each use and over time. Investor proceeds may be settled in cash or shares.
Join the success of hundreds of investors who made it with Equitybee
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Private placements are speculative, illiquid, contain substantial risk and may result in the complete loss of capital to the investor. Consult your tax accountant as there may be tax considerations on profit amounts. Results may vary with each use and over time. Investor proceeds may be settled in cash or shares. Data calculated based on the Israel market reflects offers from June 2018 through March 2025; the US market reflects offers from March 2020 through March 2025.