Rethinking Venture Capital: A Five-Part Series by Mary Blaney - Blog 2
By Mary Blaney | Proven Ventures
You start a business. You put in the long hours, take the risks, build a customer base, and finally reach a point where things are working.
Now you're ready to grow.
But growth takes money. And sometimes getting that money means giving up a piece of the business you worked so hard to build.
That's how many traditional investment arrangements work. An investor provides capital in exchange for ownership in your company. As your company grows in value, so does the investor's stake.
But what happens if you want that ownership back?
At Proven Ventures, we believe that should be a possibility. To me, the question is straightforward: Why shouldn't founders have a path to regain ownership of what they've built?
A Different Approach to Growth Capital
Our investment model combines debt and equity in ways that can give founders opportunities to repurchase ownership as their businesses grow.
Here's a simple example.
Imagine you own a successful company but need capital to expand. You bring in an investor who receives a percentage of your business in exchange for funding.
A few years later, your company has grown, revenue has increased and you're in a stronger financial position.
Rather than waiting for someone to buy your company, your investment agreement may give you the opportunity to purchase some of that ownership back.
You regain a larger stake in your business. The investor receives cash from the transaction.
That's the idea behind founder equity buybacks.
And at Proven Ventures, it's more than an idea.
Across our portfolio, founders have collectively repurchased equity representing approximately 20% of portfolio equity on a cumulative, aggregate basis.
That represents ownership returning to entrepreneurs who are building their businesses, while creating opportunities for investors to receive cash without requiring a company sale or initial public offering (IPO).
Why do cash returns matter?
Imagine someone telling you their house has doubled in value. That's great news. But until they sell it, that increase largely exists on paper.
Investing can work the same way.
In September 2026, Carta released its Q2 2026 VC Fund Performance Report, examining venture fund performance and the challenge of converting investment value into actual cash returns.
One finding stood out.
For venture funds established in 2017, the median DPI, or Distributions to Paid-In Capital, was just 0.37x. For 2018 funds, it was 0.15x, and for 2019 funds, only 0.04x.
DPI measures how much capital has actually been distributed back to investors relative to what they've contributed.
In other words, a fund can have investments that look valuable on paper without having returned much cash to its investors.
Carta's report also found that top-performing funds from the late 2010s continued to increase in total investment value, even as their internal rates of return declined. The longer it takes to realize those gains, the more timing matters.
For me, these findings bring the question back to outcomes. At Proven Ventures, we believe building value is important. Turning that value into meaningful outcomes matters, too.
Simply put, when founders win, investors win, too.
Our approach creates a potential path for both.
Founders can access capital to grow their businesses while maintaining the possibility of increasing their ownership over time.
Investors can receive cash through equity repurchases without depending entirely on a traditional exit.
It doesn't mean every investment will result in a buyback. Repurchases depend on business performance, available capital, and each investment's terms.
But it does mean there can be another way forward.
For the entrepreneur, that can mean continuing to build the company they love and retaining more of what they've created. For the investors who supported that growth, it can mean receiving returns along the way.
Source: Carta, VC Fund Performance Report: Q2 2026, published September 23, 2026. Performance figures reflect Carta's aggregated U.S. venture fund sample and are not Proven Ventures portfolio results.