Using Portfolio Terms Benchmarking

Skip ahead:

1. 1. The Problem: No benchmark data for deal terms
   2. The Solution: Portfolio Terms Benchmarking 
   3. Accessing Portfolio Terms Benchmarking 
   4. Filtering your benchmarks, deals, and page view
   5. Understanding market benchmarks
   6. Exporting market benchmarks
   7. Understanding My Portfolio Terms 
   8. Similarity to benchmark methodology
   9. Exporting your My Portfolio Terms table
      
      

I. The Problem

No benchmark data for deal terms

Without reliable market-level data, it’s impossible to accurately benchmark deal terms to keep up with venture industry changes and trends. Often, teams are stuck between counsel and portfolio company interests in dealmaking, estimating ‘market’ based on the select term sheets they’ve seen. Regardless of whether terms are considered favorable for portfolio companies or the investing teams, firms need accurate benchmarks to analyze their portfolio, review past activity, and better inform future decisions. 

II. The Solution

Portfolio Terms Benchmarking 

With  Portfolio Terms Benchmarking, you can compare your historical deal terms to other equity financings of the same stage to determine how your investments align with the market. Filter benchmarks by stage, date of investment, amount raised, and more to refine your lens of comparison. 

II. The Details

Accessing Portfolio Terms Benchmarking 

From Portfolio Analytics, select Portfolio Terms Benchmarking via the dropdown. 

The Portfolio Terms Benchmarking page is organized into three sections:

• • Filters
  • Market benchmarks
  • My Portfolio Terms 
    
    

Filtering your benchmarks, deals, and page view

Filters help you to drill down your market benchmarks and portfolio by certain criteria, including:

• Stage: Refine your entire dashboard by a specific company stage
• Date: Restrict benchmarks and deals to a certain date range or time period based on the initial closing date of the equity financing
• Amount raised: Restrict benchmarks and deals based on the total money raised
• Post Money Valuation: Restrict benchmarks and deals based on PMV
• Industry Group: Restrict benchmarks and deals by industry focus, derived from the Crunchbase taxonomy. Filtering by multiple industries uses a logical "OR" condition and will include any investments that meet at least one of the industries selected. To learn more, read this article. 

To apply a filter, click the dropdown and then Add filter. 

Understanding market benchmarks

Each market benchmark indexes 12 key deal terms by company stage to measure term prevalence within the Aumni database. 

Benchmarked terms include:

• • Broad-Based Anti-Dilution
  • Drag Along
  • Employee Vesting Protocol
  • Non-Cumulative Dividends
  • Pay-to-Play
  • Qualified Small Business Stock
  • Redemption Rights
  • ROFR and Co-Sale Agreement
  • Pro Rata Rights for All
  • Option Pool Size
  • Board Size
  • Amount Raised as a Percent of Post-Money Valuation 

The Market Benchmark table is organized by stage and by term. Click the arrow on the bottom right of the table to view all of the constituent terms. Keep in mind, applying filters will change the parameters of the benchmarks.

 

Exporting market benchmarks

Export aggregated benchmark data to Excel, .json, or CSV by clicking the ⋯  at the top right of the benchmark table. Your download will retain any filters. 

 

Understanding My Portfolio Terms 

The My Portfolio Terms table catalogs deal terms for all of the equity financings you've participated in, and includes the following data points:

• • Similarity to benchmark metric
  • Portfolio company name
  • Company industry
  • Stage
  • Date of initial close 
  • Lead investors 
  • My Investment ($)
  • Shares Converted
  • The 12 terms that form the market benchmark

By scrolling to the right of your table, you can view all of the benchmarked terms for a deal and discover whether a certain right or privilege is in effect via a simple 'True/False' or numerical data field. Note, international deals (non-USD currencies or non-US jurisdiction) are excluded from analysis, as terms and rights will differ from the benchmark.

Similarity to benchmark methodology

Each of your investments is then compared against the market benchmark term-by-term, resulting in a similarity calculation in the far left column. Similarity simply measures how similar each deal term is to the benchmark, and then aggregates the results into a single metric that's easy to reference. 

The similarity to benchmark metric provides unbiased insight into whether your deals are on- or off-market; it does not assign a value judgment on whether terms are favorable.

Exporting your My Portfolio Terms table

Export your entire My Portfolio Terms table, including the similarity metric, to Excel, .json, or CSV by clicking the ⋯  at the top right of the benchmark table.