Can I publish VC fund performance on my website?

What the rule text actually requires

The requirements below are quoted from the codified United States marketing rule at 17 CFR 275.206(4)-1. This page cites the codified text rather than the Commission's own compliance guide because the Commission's pages could not be reached while this page was researched, and this library does not cite a source it could not open. The rule is the authority in either case.

• Gross performance may not be presented unless the advertisement also presents net performance with at least equal prominence to, and in a format designed to facilitate comparison with, the gross performance, calculated over the same time period.
• Performance results generally must be presented for one-, five-, and ten-year periods, each with equal prominence.
• No statement, express or implied, that the calculation or presentation has been approved or reviewed by the Commission.
• Related performance must include all related portfolios, subject to a narrow exclusion where the advertised results are not materially higher as a result.
• Extracted performance, meaning results pulled from a larger portfolio, requires that the advertisement provide, or offer to provide promptly, the performance of the total portfolio it came from.
• Hypothetical performance, defined as results not actually achieved by any portfolio of the adviser, requires policies making it relevant to the intended audience, sufficient information for the recipient to understand the criteria and assumptions, and the risks and limitations. Target returns and projections sit inside this definition.
• Predecessor performance requires that the people primarily responsible manage accounts at the advertising adviser, that the prior accounts be sufficiently similar, that all substantially similar accounts be included unless exclusion does not produce materially higher results, and that clear and prominent disclosure be given that the results were achieved at another entity.

The specific things managers most want to publish

Each of these has a reason it is harder than it looks.

• Fund-level returns. Permitted in principle with net alongside gross and the prescribed periods, and rarely simple for a young fund whose numbers are mostly unrealized.
• A single investment's multiple. This is extracted performance, so the total portfolio's results have to be provided or promptly offered alongside it.
• Gross returns alone. Not permitted in an advertisement without net at equal prominence, in a comparable format, over the same period.
• Target returns. These are hypothetical performance by definition, since they were not achieved by any portfolio, and they carry the full set of hypothetical conditions.
• Projections and modelled outcomes. Same category, same conditions, including the requirement that the adviser have policies making the presentation relevant to the intended audience.
• Prior-firm results. Permitted only on the four predecessor conditions, and separately dependent on the prior firm's permission, which is a contractual question rather than a regulatory one.
• Testimonials and endorsements. Regulated communications with their own disclosure and oversight requirements, and a category where an enthusiastic founder quote is not a neutral piece of website copy.
• Rankings and awards. Third-party ratings carry their own conditions, and a badge on a website is a performance-adjacent claim rather than decoration.
• Cherry-picked outcomes. The pattern the extracted performance and related performance provisions exist to address, and the one most likely to be noticed by a reader who counts the companies.

Public educational content against offering material

These are different things and the line is worth holding deliberately, because it is what lets a manager publish anything at all.

Educational content explains how something works: how a data room is organised, how a construction model is built, what a diligence questionnaire asks. It makes no claim about your results and offers nothing.

Offering material invites or supports an investment decision. Performance belongs here, and here it reaches only readers you have qualified, under whichever offering route you are using. In the United States, one private placement route does not permit general solicitation at all, which is a separate reason a public performance page can create a problem beyond the advertising rules.

The practical architecture that follows is the one Blueprint's page on whether a fund needs a website recommends: publish the firm, the team, the strategy, and your thinking, and keep the fund and its numbers in documents you send.

Why a disclaimer is not a safe harbor

Disclaimers do useful work and they do not do this work. The rule's requirements are structural: net alongside gross, the total portfolio behind an extract, policies and assumptions behind a hypothetical, four conditions on predecessor results. A paragraph saying past performance does not guarantee future results addresses none of those, because none of them is a warning requirement.

The second problem is that a disclaimer cannot cure a presentation that is misleading through what it includes or excludes. If the selection is the problem, adding text below the selection does not fix the selection.

This is also why copying another firm's website language is a poor strategy. That firm may be a different kind of adviser, marketing under a different route, in a different jurisdiction, with performance you cannot see the basis for.

The counsel-review checklist

Take this to counsel rather than resolving it yourself. It is a list of what to ask about, not a list of answers, and nothing on this page is legal advice.

• Which regulator's rules apply to us, given where we are established, where our adviser entity sits, and where our investors are?
• Which offering route are we using, and does it permit general solicitation at all?
• Does this page constitute an advertisement, a financial promotion, or a marketing communication under each applicable regime?
• If we show any performance, what is the net figure, how is it calculated, and does the presentation satisfy the equal prominence and comparable format requirements?
• Are we showing extracted performance, and if so how do we provide the total portfolio's results?
• Are any of our figures hypothetical, including targets, projections, or modelled outcomes, and what policies and disclosures do they require?
• Are any results from a prior firm, and do we satisfy the predecessor conditions and hold written permission?
• Do any quotes, endorsements, rankings, or awards on the site trigger testimonial or third-party rating requirements?
• What records must we keep to substantiate every claim on demand, and who maintains them?
• Who reviews the site before changes go live, and how often is it re-reviewed?

What changes outside the United States

Other regimes reach similar destinations by different routes, and a page satisfying one does not satisfy another.

In the United Kingdom, marketing a fund requires the appropriate permission or a private placement notification, and financial promotion rules govern communications inviting investment activity. In the European Union, showing a strategy to potential professional investors before a fund exists is pre-marketing, with conditions including that the material must not be sufficient to let an investor commit, plus a notification to the home regulator within two weeks of starting.

A website is visible in every jurisdiction simultaneously, which is the structural reason performance is the hardest thing to publish and the easiest thing to keep in a sent document.

What this page does not do

It does not tell you whether your specific page is compliant, and it cannot. That depends on your adviser status, your offering route, your jurisdictions, and the numbers themselves, all of which need counsel who can see the actual materials.

It also does not describe the Commission's own guidance, because those pages could not be reached while this page was researched. The requirements above are the codified rule text, and the source substitution is recorded here and in the decision log rather than left implicit.

This page is educational and general. It is not legal, tax, accounting, or investment advice, and marketing materials containing performance should be reviewed by counsel before publication.