Venture Capital

Fund accounting for venture capital funds, built for GP-speed and LP scrutiny.

ASC 946-compliant books, defensible portfolio marks, and capital account statements your LPs and auditors can trust — without hiring a controller before you need one.

Why VC funds are different

Illiquid, judgment-heavy, and unforgiving of sloppy records.

Venture capital fund accounting looks simple from a distance — capital in, capital out, a portfolio that (hopefully) appreciates. In practice it's one of the more judgment-intensive corners of ASC 946 (Financial Services — Investment Companies). Every capital call has to tie to the LPA's commitment schedule and pro-rata allocations. Every distribution has to reflect the right waterfall tier, whether it's return of capital, preferred return, or carried interest. And every portfolio company mark has to be supportable under ASC 820 the moment your auditor asks "how did you get to this number?"

Most emerging VC managers don't have a full-time controller in year one — nor should they. What they need is a fund accountant who already speaks the language of SAFEs, priced rounds, down rounds, and secondary transactions, and who can turn quarterly portfolio company updates into a fair value memo that holds up.

What I handle

Capital call & distribution notices tied to LPA commitment schedules
Portfolio company fair value under ASC 820 (priced rounds, comparables, milestone adjustments)
Management fee calculations & fee offset tracking
Carried interest waterfall modeling across fund vintages
Quarterly & annual LP capital account statements
Year-end audit coordination & PBC list management

ASC 946 for VC, plainly

What "investment company accounting" actually means for your fund

ASC 946 requires a VC fund to carry its investments at fair value, not at cost — which sounds abstract until your first audit, when every mark needs a paper trail.

Capital calls & distributions

Every call and distribution needs to reconcile to the LPA's pro-rata terms, management fee offsets, and recycling provisions — and flow cleanly into each LP's capital account.

Fair value at every close

New priced rounds, down rounds, secondaries, and material business developments can all trigger a re-mark. I build the memo that shows your methodology, not just the number.

Audit-ready from day one

Auditors want to see support for every judgment call. Clean workpapers built during the year mean a faster, cheaper audit — not a scramble in March.

Common pitfalls

Where VC fund books go wrong

These are the issues that show up most often when I take over books from a prior bookkeeper or spreadsheet-based system.

Marks that lag reality

Portfolio companies get re-marked once a year at "audit time" instead of when a triggering event — a new round, a bridge, a down round — actually occurs. That leaves NAV stale and creates an uncomfortable conversation with LPs when the correction finally happens.

Management fee drift

Step-downs after the investment period, fee offsets from monitoring or transaction fees, and organizational expense caps are frequently miscalculated or simply not tracked, which understates or overstates what LPs actually owe.

Carry calculated too late

Waiting until a liquidity event to model carried interest means GPs discover allocation issues — European vs. American waterfall, clawback exposure — only after money has moved.

LP statements that don't tie out

Capital account statements built manually in Excel drift from the general ledger over multiple closes and SPVs, creating reconciliation headaches at exactly the moment LPs are asking sharper questions.

Working across fund vintages

Supporting VC managers as they raise fund II, III, and beyond

Most VC firms don't stop at one fund. Each new vintage adds accounting complexity that a spreadsheet-based system stops handling well.

Cross-fund conflicts & allocation policy

When multiple funds can invest in the same portfolio company, a documented allocation policy protects both the GP and LPs across vintages — and needs to be applied consistently, not decided deal by deal.

Management company scaling

As management fees from multiple active funds flow into one management company, allocating shared overhead and staff costs back to each fund fairly becomes its own ongoing accounting exercise.

SPVs & opportunity funds

Special purpose vehicles for follow-on rounds or standalone opportunity funds each need their own capital accounts and reporting, reconciled back to the main fund's records.

Consistent LP experience

LPs investing across several of your funds expect the same reporting format, cadence, and level of detail every time — inconsistency between vintages reads as a lack of institutional maturity.

Ready for VC fund accounting that keeps pace with your deal flow?

Bring your fund structure, current stack, and audit timeline to a consultation — I'll show you exactly how this would work for your fund.

Schedule a Consultation