---
title: "Vintage Year"
url: "https://mahouse.world/glossary/vintage-year"
type: "glossary term"
topic: "Funds"
author: "Ihor Vlasov"
reviewed: "2026-09-20"
published: "2026-08-10"
---

# Vintage Year

A vintage year is the year in which a private fund made its first investment or first called capital — the year that fixes the prices it bought at, the market it will exit into, and therefore the only fair comparison set: a 2021 fund is judged against other 2021 funds, not against a 2016 fund that bought cheaply and sold at the top. Investors spread commitments across vintages for the same reason winemakers do not rely on one harvest.

**Also known as:** Vintage, Fund vintage, Vintage-year benchmarking

## Key facts

- **Used at:** fund benchmarking (Cambridge Associates, Preqin and PitchBook publish quartiles by vintage), LP portfolio construction, and the diligence on a manager's track record — which is read fund by fund, vintage by vintage
- **Binding:** no — a classification; conventions differ on whether the vintage is the first close, the first call or the first investment, so benchmarks state theirs
- **Typical dispersion:** within a vintage the gap between top-quartile and bottom-quartile funds is 10–20 points of IRR; between vintages the median swings with the cycle — 2009–2013 vintages bought after the crisis and returned strongly; 2021 vintages bought at the peak
- **Typical LP rule:** commit a similar amount every year regardless of the market's mood, since the years that feel worst to invest in — 2009, 2023 — tend to be the best vintages
- **Parties:** LPs and their consultants, GPs raising funds and defending their records, and the benchmark providers

## How vintage year works in practice

A fund raised in 2020 and investing through 2024 buys companies at 2021's prices and 2023's, and sells them in 2027–2030 into whatever market exists then. Its return is partly the manager's skill and partly the vintage's luck: a 2006 buy-out fund bought at the top and sold into 2009; a 2010 fund bought from distressed sellers and sold into 2015's boom; the same manager, the same strategy, a 1.3× and a 2.8×. Benchmarks therefore rank a fund among its vintage peers — top quartile in 2010 is a different achievement from top quartile in 2006 — and a GP's track record is a series of vintage-relative results, not one number.

For LPs the lesson is pacing. An investor who committed heavily in 2007 and nothing in 2009 owns the bad vintage and missed the good one; one who committed the same amount every year owns both and the average. Discipline in the years that feel dangerous is where vintage returns are made, and the 2023 vintage — raised when fundraising was hardest and prices lowest — is the one the pacing rule was written for.

In fintech the vintage effect is stark: venture funds of the 2021 vintage bought fintech at the sector's peak multiples and marked them down for three years; funds of the 2023 vintage bought the same companies' next rounds at half the price.

## Example

A manager's three funds: 2016 vintage, €400m, 2.6× and 24% IRR; 2019 vintage, €600m, 1.9× and 16% at year five; 2021 vintage, €900m, 0.95× and −2% at year three, with a portfolio of fintech and software bought at 2021 prices. Against the benchmarks: the 2016 fund is top quartile, the 2019 second quartile, the 2021 — at −2% — is also second quartile, because the 2021 vintage's median is −4%. An LP reading "the last fund is losing money" declines to re-up; another reading "second quartile in the worst vintage in fifteen years, with the discipline to have called only 70% of commitments" commits to fund four, raised in 2024 at €700m to buy from the sellers of 2021's portfolios.

## Common mistakes

- Comparing a fund's return with a fund of another vintage and calling the difference skill.
- Stopping commitments in a downturn and resuming when it feels safe, which buys the expensive vintages and skips the cheap ones.
- Reading a track record as an average when it is a series.
- Benchmarking against a provider whose vintage definition differs from the fund's.
- GPs raising a fund on a 2021 vintage's paper marks before the marks have met the market.

## Related terms

- [J-Curve](https://mahouse.world/glossary/j-curve.md)
- [Limited Partner](https://mahouse.world/glossary/limited-partner.md)
- [Capital Call](https://mahouse.world/glossary/capital-call.md)
- [Internal Rate of Return](https://mahouse.world/glossary/internal-rate-of-return.md)
- [Dry Powder](https://mahouse.world/glossary/dry-powder.md)
- [Private Equity](https://mahouse.world/glossary/private-equity.md)

— Ihor Vlasov, M&A FinTech Expert. Last reviewed 2026-09-20. https://mahouse.world/authors/ihor-vlasov