A venture firm publishes no annual report, but it leaves a consistent trail in SEC filings: the manager's Form ADV, a Form D for each fund and SPV it raises, and its partners' names on the Form Ds of the startups they back. Following that trail in a fixed order gives you a fairly complete outline of a firm, including its funds, their sizes over time, its people and its likely portfolio. This guide sets out the method step by step, and shows how embarc joins the pieces.
Step 1: Find the adviser on Form ADV
Start with the management company. Search the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) site for the firm's name. Most venture managers appear as exempt reporting advisers relying on the venture capital fund adviser exemption (Rule 203(l)-1), or on the private fund adviser exemption for managers with less than $150 million in US private fund assets. Their report is a partial Form ADV, with no Part 2 brochure. Larger or multi-strategy firms register in full. Either way, note the adviser's CRD number, its ownership (Schedules A and B), and the date of its latest annual amendment, which is due within 90 days after its fiscal year end.
Expect more than one adviser. Established firms often file under several entities, such as a management company, a separate adviser for a growth or opportunity strategy, or an older entity from an earlier generation of partners. Search on the firm's short name and its street address to find them all.
Step 2: List its funds from Schedule D
Schedule D, Section 7.B.(1) has one entry for each private fund the adviser manages. For each fund it gives the name, the private fund identification number, the general partner, the 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) exclusion, the fund type, the gross asset value, the minimum investment, the approximate number of beneficial owners, the service providers and the Form D file number. That list is the firm's fund lineup: flagship funds by number, opportunity or growth funds, parallel and feeder entities, and frequently a long tail of co-investment vehicles.
Keep the structure in mind when counting. A "Fund IV" may appear as a main fund, a parallel fund and an entrepreneurs' or affiliates' fund, which is three entries for one vintage. A feeder's gross asset value is largely its master's.
Step 3: Match each fund to its Form D
Each fund that raised under Regulation D filed a Form D, usually citing "Pooled Investment Fund / Venture Capital Fund". Use the Form D file number from Schedule D where it is given, or else search EDGAR for the fund's exact name. The Form D adds what Schedule D lacks: the date of first sale (the fund's start), the target ("total offering amount"), the commitments raised so far ("total amount sold"), the 506(b) or 506(c) exemption, the number of investors, and the related persons, who are the general partner entity and its managing members.
Step 4: Plot fund sizes across vintages
Line the funds up by date of first sale and compare sizes. Use the amount sold on each fund's latest amendment as the closest public figure to final commitments, and the gross asset value on Schedule D as a later snapshot. The pattern tells you a lot: a firm whose flagship funds keep growing, one that has added a growth fund beside its early-stage line, or one whose newest fund is smaller than the last. Treat these as sizes, not performance. Neither form discloses returns, and gross asset value is the adviser's own figure, not a mark.
Step 5: Map the people
The related persons on each fund's Form D are the partners who sign for the general partner. Read them across vintages and you can see when partners joined, which partners carry over from fund to fund, and who stopped appearing. Spin-outs, where partners leave to start a new firm, often show up first as a familiar name on a new fund's Form D.
Step 6: Find its SPVs and the platforms it uses
Many firms also raise deal-by-deal capital through special purpose vehicles. Each SPV files its own Form D, usually named for the deal or as "a series of" a platform's master LLC. SPVs formed on platforms such as AngelList or Sydecar are advised by the platform's own adviser, so they appear on the platform's Form ADV rather than the firm's. To find a firm's SPVs, search Form D for its name and its partners' names, and note which platform's series each SPV belongs to.
Step 7: Read portfolio signals from startups' Form Ds
Form D never names a fund's investments. The best public substitute is the board seat. When a partner of the firm appears as a director on a startup's Form D, the firm very likely invested, typically leading or co-leading a round. An SPV named for a startup and first sold close to one of that startup's rounds is a second signal. Check timing: a partner who joined a startup's board before joining the firm is not evidence of a firm investment. Read these as signals, and confirm them against press releases and the startup's own disclosures.
How embarc links it together
The venture lists are in the embarc dashboard, which needs a paid plan. They do the joins above for you:
- Firms, not registrants. A VC firm is a fund family, meaning the Form ADV advisers that belong to one house, grouped. Its page shows venture-only figures (VC funds, VC fund assets and VC advisers) beside the house totals, and tabs for its VC funds, its VC advisers, its linked Form D filings and its inferred portfolio. See fund families explained.
- Funds matched to Form D. VC funds are the private funds reported as venture capital on Schedule D. Form D filings are linked to the adviser side by the Form D file number on Schedule D and by name, CIK, CRD, address and phone matches. Each link shows its method and a confidence score.
- People across filings. Venture leadership lists the people named on the Form Ds of venture funds (investors) and startups (founders and directors), resolved to one person across filings. Someone on both sides carries a "Both" badge, and each person's page lists the companies they are named on.
- SPVs and platforms. SPVs lists single-deal vehicles by the platform that formed them. An adviser that is a platform's own adviser is labeled as such and left out of VC firms and advisers, because its book is thousands of one-deal vehicles rather than a venture fund lineup.
- An inferred portfolio. A firm's portfolio tab comes from two methods: a shared person (one person on a VC fund's Form D and on the startup's) and an SPV name (an SPV named for the startup, first sold within 180 days of one of its rounds). Each link shows its method, confidence and evidence. Weaker links are folded away below the rest: earlier board seats, where every linked fund started after the startup's last Form D, and departed partners, where the shared people had left the firm years before the round.
Explore the data
- VC firms: venture fund families with their funds and portfolio
- Venture leadership: partners, founders and directors across Form Ds
- SPVs: single-deal vehicles by platform