Angellist YC Demo Day Returns

Anyone have a view on the AngelList YC Demo Day funds? They look suspicious to be honest. Here are their historical returns, as published by AL:

The funds of each Demo Day batch have achieved the following combined IRRs:* Summer 2015: 38% Winter 2016: 51% Summer 2016: 13% Winter 2017: 38% Summer 2017: 40% Winter 2018: 82% Summer 2018: 36% Winter 2019: 86% Summer 2019: 17% Winter 2020: 30% Summer 2020: 50% Winter 2021: 22%

I know the returns are BS as they have likely not been marked to market yet, and in any case, will ultimately come down substantially to at best be similar to top quartile VC returns. If you want to be really skeptical, it could be a ponzi scheme.

They won’t let you ask any questions, won’t tell you how much each individual fund manager has returned in IRR, won’t tell you which startups are in the fund you have invested in, and they lock up your money for up to 10 years essentially.

The fund managers are all young, none have lived through a full cycle, and pitch their investors on Zoom in tshirts looking disheveled and all.

I don’t know, something doesn’t feel right. I am also watching the Madoff documentary on Netflix, so maybe that’s not helping.

Any thoughts/experiences/insights would be appreciated.