This paper analyzes the determinants of returns generated by European private equity funds. It starts from the presumption that this asset class is characterized by illiquidity, stickiness and segmentation. As a consequence, Gompers and Lerner (2000) have shown that venture deal valuations are...

This paper presents a cash flow based analysis of the return and risk characteristics of European Private Equity Funds. For that purpose a comprehensive data set has been provided by Thomson Venture Economics. We document the typical time pattern of cash flows for European private equity funds....

This paper offers a quantitative description of European private equity markets and compares the recent development in these markets with the development of the US venture capital market. Moreover, the paper addresses the differences between private equity investors acting in a single national...

Despite the sometimes intensive media coverage and exuberant storytelling around the industry, venture capital (VC) investors tend to operate in highly opaque markets. On this premise, this work contributes to the literature via a hand-collected dataset of about 3,600 EIF-backed VC investments...