Venture Enhancement Strategies

Knightsbridge has pioneered public equity-based strategies that can enhance an institution’s participation in the venture capital sector. These strategies focus on the ‘public venture’ segment of public markets, i.e., on newly public, high growth, technology companies that were previously backed by the best venture capitalists.

To this point, Knightsbridge’s investment in ‘public venture’ companies has been through multiple, specialist, managers with deep, domain knowledge in this inefficient sector. Knightsbridge has developed a new rules-based approach to investing in ‘public venture.’ The Venture Proxy Fund, with risk and return characteristics linked to venture capital is a proxy for and a complement to venture capital. The availability of an effective proxy for venture capital has significant potential to enhance a venture investment program. In Knightsbridge’s Venture Exposure Management, or VXM^TM strategy, post-venture is combined with venture to manage total exposure to emerging technology companies, helping investors to deal with the extreme cyclicality of the venture sector and the difficulty of achieving a targeted venture allocation.

A focus on ‘public venture’ can also help venture investors capitalize more effectively on the small number of venture-backed companies that go on to become mega-winners in public markets, companies that are disproportionately backed by the best venture capitalists. In weak IPO markets, when promising venture-backed companies may go public at poor prices, it can allow the investor to realize more of the value created through the venture investment process.