Emerging Managers Outperform, So Why Is Capital Still Concentrated?

Colibri Institute analyzed 2,471 U.S. venture capital funds raised between 2000 and 2024 and found that emerging managers, defined by their systematic exclusion from institutional search processes, outperform established peers by 7.2 percentage points in IRR and 0.34x in total value creation. That performance gap translates to $72 million in foregone returns on a $100 million venture allocation. This session presents the empirical research behind those findings and examines why the screening criteria most institutions rely on tend to filter out the managers most likely to outperform, and what foundations, family offices, and fund-of-funds allocators can do differently.