Platform KPI Survey
Platform KPI Survey
How VC Platform Teams Measure Success
Every year, Forum closes for a week of summer rest in July. So when I started writing this edition of Platform Shift, I was relaxing in Breckenridge. My partner and I went out to Summit County Colorado, where I traded my regular meeting schedule for trail running and canoeing. I finished reading Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, and started reading Mercé Rodoreda’s Garden By The Sea. My nervous system loves Colorado, especially because the days start slow with pour-over coffee and journaling (a practice I’ve kept up with for the last 8+ years) vs. my fast morning scribbles in New York City.
While I didn’t check my email, or slack, or do any work - I did analyze the results of my mini KPI Survey: How VC Platform Teams Measure Success. I was excited to get these findings out into the world, but sadly our flight home was struck by Crowdstrike and canceled. So instead of getting home on Saturday, we got home Thursday morning on a red-eye. I vowed a few years ago that I would never take another red-eye, but after three canceled flights we were willing to give-up on some sleep to get back home.
With multiple trips to the airports, and many hours on hold with Delta’s customer service, my ambition of getting the newsletter out last week vanished. Despite having my eyes glued to the evening primetime coverage of the Olympics, I was able to make meaningful progress on writing. I’m excited to finally share the results here this week.
My hope is that these results build transparency around what VC platform teams are measuring, and make it easier for teams to set their own KPIs and communicate their impact. If you missed the last edition of Platform Shift, Measuring Impact: KPIs for VC Platform, check it out. It provides a framework to set and review KPIs.
My friend Cory Bolotsky also wrote a piece, How to Communicate Your Impact as a Platform Professional, that walks through how to communicate in a way that resonates with different stakeholders (e.g. GPs, LPs, Portfolio Founders, etc).
It’s a great, practical read and an important reminder that regardless of how we structure our platforms, we should all be in pursuit of driving top-decile returns.
Let’s get into it.
Mini Survey Overview
Over the last month, I surveyed 25+ different venture funds with the goal of understanding how they measure and communicate the success of their platform function. These funds range in size from less than $50M assets-under-management to more than $500M.
Across the funds surveyed, platform teams were as small as 1 and as large as 12. Despite the range in assets-under-management, a majority (66%) of the platform teams were made up of 3 or less people.
As I said in my last article, “a rising tide lifts all boats” and I really do believe that. Platform is a tough role, especially in an industry that often feels more competitive than collaborative, more judgmental than supportive. The more we can elevate VC Platform - the better. Hopefully the following stats, metrics, and insights serve as a helpful input in your own platform strategy and how you both measure, and communicate, return on investment.
Platform Team Composition & Strategy
Platform Team Composition
A growing, but still small, percentage of venture fund employees are dedicated to Platform. According to The Power of Platform: How VC Platform Teams Contribute to Outsized Fund Returns, one in eight core employees at a venture firm (13.1% of core team members) are focused on platform, compared to one in sixteen (or 6.4%) in 2000.
Although there are certainly exceptions, most venture capital funds are small. The average fund has only 14 employees1. Across the funds surveyed, platform teams were as small as 1 and as large as 12. Despite the range in assets-under-management, a majority (66%) of the platform teams were made up of 3 or less people.
For many VC Platform teams, the scope of responsibilities is broad, with solo teams often taking on a wide range of duties. These solo platform teams are typically responsible for everything from growing the firm’s brand to driving community engagement and delivering portfolio support.
As teams expanded, we began to see more specialization within the platform function, with individual contributors focusing on specific roles. Some of these specialized roles include:
Partnership Manager
Director of Marketing
Platform Operations Manager
Talent Associate
Events Lead
Network Director
Business Development Manager
Vice President, Go-To-Market Strategy
“While VC firms do not necessarily need to invest in Platform roles to be successful, the data shows that when looking at the asset class as a whole, increased Platform investment contributes to stronger overall performance. Funds with higher levels of investment in Platform teams generally have high Net Internal Rate of Returns (IRR) and Total-Value-Paid-In (TVPI) compared to those that have no Platform based on pooled returns.” 2
When we zoom out from our survey and consider the broader VC landscape, it's interesting to observe how funds with staying power—those delivering consistent returns over time—invest in their platform teams. Firms like Sequoia, A16z, Benchmark, Kleiner Perkins, and Accel have all delivered strong, annualized returns over decades, with reported IRRs ranging between 20-40%, placing them in the top decile of the industry.
According to Sequoia’s website, their early-stage and growth-stage funds are supported by 34 investors and a robust platform team of 40 operators. The roles on their platform team vary widely, from Principal Designer to Vice President of Engineering to Senior Director of Customer Partnerships. I would find it hard to believe that Sequoia’s significant investment in platform roles hasn’t contributed to their success.
Similarly, Accel has made a substantial investment in their platform team, which they refer to as specialists. Based on their website, they have 17 specialists in their Bay Area office, with roles ranging from Marketing Managers to Business Operations.
Not every fund that increases its AUM will choose to significantly grow its team. However, both our survey and broader industry trends indicate that funds with platform strategies tend to invest in the function as they scale—whether through increased headcount, budget, resources, or a combination of these factors.
Platform Team Strategy
In our mini-survey, 75% of platform teams reported building their strategy from the ground up, with only 25% executing on an existing strategy. Among those who built their strategy from scratch, 33% were solo platform leaders hired within the last two years.
If you’re one of the first platform hires at a firm, it’s likely that you’ll be tasked with setting the strategy. This expectation is one reason the hiring process can be so insular, with former Heads of Platform often moving from one firm to another. It’s easier to assume that a former platform leader knows how to build and execute a successful strategy—which isn’t always the case. I strongly believe that individuals from outside venture bring valuable perspectives and skills to the platform role.
The majority of platform strategies took a well-rounded approach, incorporating both pre-investment and post-investment support to drive fund performance and enhance portfolio success. These strategies typically included elements like community engagement, events to source new founders, business development, fundraising support, and educational initiatives.
75% of platform leaders regularly assess their strategy and initiatives—most often on a quarterly basis—to ensure that the platform remains responsive, relevant, and aligned with the firm’s goals. Beyond this short-term reflection, many leaders also use firm efficiency metrics and anecdotal feedback from founders to gauge the impact of their strategy. A small minority of firms surveyed view their strategy as more flexible or free-flowing.
“It’s always been a moving target, but we think about our strategy in 3 key-buckets: hiring, business development, and fundraising. Some can be clearly quantified, others are hard.”
KPIs & Success Metrics
Unlike more traditional business roles, VC Platform roles have historically lacked benchmarks, making it difficult to know where to start or how to compare performance against other firms.
In our survey, most platform leaders viewed KPIs as crucial not only for communicating impact to their General Partners but also for holding themselves accountable. KPIs served as a valuable gauge for the effectiveness of the various initiatives they executed. However, a smaller minority of leaders found that the importance of KPIs diminished as their tenure at the firm increased.
“I’m 2.5 years into this role and now also the firm’s COO. I think hard metrics matter more in the beginning. You are trying to prove your worth and prove that you are adding value. Once you really start adding value, they seem to matter less.”
Across 75% of funds we surveyed, the platform team established their own KPIs. Only 9% had KPIs set by their General Partners and 16% had no KPIs at all.
“I create KPIs for myself that I measure with my partners on a quarterly basis. It's still a work in progress but it has been helpful to diligently track so that each quarter, when we meet, we can reassess if needed. Each year we build off of these KPIs and add in more initiatives.”
The most common KPI categories included:
Fund Admin & Operations
25% of platform leaders we surveyed are responsible for fund administration or fund operations. Some had more concrete KPIs tied to outcomes like audit completion data and timeline, while others felt like the KPIs were more loosely defined as improving general efficiency.
One leader expressed challenges with balancing the internal fund work with portfolio support. As a team of 2, the fund work often took precedent.
“On top of that, the reality is that the fund has its own operational needs that fall into the Platform person’s lap. In my case, I’m involved with fundraising for the fund, reporting, and communications work. Unfortunately, these fund-centered operations tend to take priority over portfolio support.”
Brand Awareness & Sourcing
Platform leaders play a crucial role in driving both brand awareness and sourcing for their firms. They are responsible for ensuring that the firm's brand is well-positioned in the market and that the pipeline for new investments is strong.
For brand awareness, KPIs included things like: PR Mentions, MoM Newsletter Subscription Growth, and number of relevant attendees at events. In terms of sourcing, leaders tracked the number of new startups sourced, evaluated, and investments made.
“All my brand and marketing initiatives are focused on getting new, high-quality founders into our investment pipeline.”
Founder NPS & Engagement
Most funds measured NPS using standard practices (here’s the easy and free calculator we use at Forum), and aimed for scores ranging from 50, which is considered excellent, all the way to 80+, which is world-class. At Forum, our NPS KPI is 80+ which we measure quarterly.
On the engagement side, we saw a wide range of KPIs including:
% of the portfolio touched quarterly
# of portfolio engagements per quarter
Business Development
In the realm of business development, platform leaders from our survey are responsible for creating opportunities that drive growth for portfolio companies. They measured success by tracking a range of KPIs, including the number of new business development campaigns launched, the total number of introductions made, and the revenue generated from these connections.
The effectiveness of business development initiatives was one of the more challenging KPIs outcomes to quantify, as some of these introductions take months or years to materialize.
“While we’re excellent at tracking the number of introductions, and understanding how much pipeline we’re generating across the portfolio. It’s harder to close the loop on outcomes. We’ve set up some automations to help here, but it’s not perfect. We definitely miss some of the long-term revenue impact.”
Additionally, they monitor the number of strategic partnerships formed, the volume of meetings secured with potential partners, and the outcomes of these engagements.
Talent Placement
Talent placement was another critical area where platform leaders in our survey made a significant impact. Success in talent placement was measured by KPIs such as the number of successful placements made each year, the expansion of the talent network, and the effectiveness of onboarding and integration processes. Platform leaders also tracked the number of candidates sourced through various channels, the engagement levels of portfolio companies with the talent network, and the overall satisfaction of founders with the talent function.
Fundraising
30% of the platform leaders we surveyed also played a pivotal role in supporting the fundraising efforts of their firms. They are often tasked with creating and executing strategies that help portfolio companies raise capital successfully.
To measure the effectiveness of these efforts, platform leaders track KPIs such as the total amount of capital raised by portfolio companies, the number of fundraising rounds successfully completed, and the quality and frequency of investor introductions. Many firms assessed the impact of their support by tracking the percentage of portfolio companies that raise their next round of funding and the overall valuation increases. By aligning these efforts with the firm's broader fundraising goals, platform leaders ensured that their work directly contributes to the financial growth and success of both the portfolio and the firm.
I hope you found these valuable. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the strategies and KPIs discussed, especially how you're approaching these areas within your own firm. Your experiences and insights can help us all refine our approaches and drive greater impact.
I’ll leave you with my favorite reminder - less is more. Without focus and dedication, it’s impossible to be excellent. Building an incredible platform doesn’t mean you do it all. It means you determine your highest value levers that allow you to source, invest, and support great companies. While our goals and KPIs may look different across funds, we’re all playing the same game. In order to keep playing this game, we need to deliver great returns to our LPs.
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/audit/vc-human-capital-survey-3rd-edition-2021.pdf
https://powerof.vcplatform.com/