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Sang.

That's the nature of VC investment. It's a hits model. Some will fail, this is inevitable but Molten has a pretty good track record of extracting SOME cash on these exits (the preference shares stuff is what matters here). Most VCs don't care that much about getting their money back, but Molten seems to focus on this because if the balance sheet model.

But 1x returns aren't the basis of the business. The vast amount of the returns since IPO have come from a handful of companies delivering >3x returns. From pp. 4-5 from the last Interim report, of the roughly £600m in returns since IPO, £413m has come from a handful of exits.

The only thing you can point to at one time or another to get an idea of total value of the portfolio is the NAV, and thus far it's held up to scrutiny, even during the downturn of the last few years. Sure it goes up and down, but not by a huge amount and CERTAINLY shouldn't be 50% discounted.

Freetrade was one of the exits:

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Agreed, IPO market is horrible and has been for years. Getting away exits and trade sales in this market is incredibly hard but Molten racked them up last year - at or above NAV - which demonstrates rare capability. Many other VCs haven't been able to do this. I don't understand the enormous discount to NAV. It makes no sense, especially when you have companies like Chrysalis which is... quite racy... in its valuations trading at less of a discount.

Steph.

Fair enough. I suggest you watch the valuations film i suggested from Investor Day last year. It's pretty clarifying on the overall process as well as limitations.

Weird, LSE it removed the link. But you can check it out for yourself. The article cover's last years Investor Day from the Insights section of the Molten website. You can also find it in the videos section on the Investor Relations page.

Incidentally, in this article there's a video from last year's Investor Day that discusses the valuations process in detail:

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I've been an observer of this group for many years. I've been in and around VC for over a decade. I own a decent chunk of Molten shares that are just slightly under water at this point.

A topic that comes up repeatedly in this group is the ability of Molten to be more "transparent" and disaggregate portco data. A fundamental part of why companies take VC money is because they want their disclosures to remain private. If Molten published this information they simply would not be able to invest in quality tech companies. Molten competes against private traditional VCs who keep their valuations incredibly private, so Molten needs to find a balance. Personally i think they do a pretty good job and their website has useful resources on how they do valuations. That's just the rules of the game and if you own Molten shares you have to accept this.

Portcos will of course publish their own information publicly, that's their prerogative, but Molten is restricted in what it can disaggregate.

As to Steph's assertion that the SP is weighed down by a lack of transparency, I disagree. Molten had a number of quality exits at or above NAV in the last financial year. The proof the valuation process works is right there in the exits. This alone should have supported the existing NAV, but that doesn't seem to have solved the problem. It also looks like banks are forecasting NAV rising again. But again this doesn't shift the needle much.

I don't know the answer TBH, but I do know that markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.