Author's Profile

Kyle Stanford

Director, VC Research

Kyle Stanford, CAIA, is the director of US venture capital research at PitchBook, where he oversees a team of analysts covering the US venture market. He has developed PitchBook’s coverage areas within nontraditional VC investment, venture debt and VC ecosystem development, as well as our breakout of the venture growth stage of the VC market. He also contributes to quarterly core reports, produces thematic analyst notes on various topics and speaks at industry conferences such as SXSW and Collision. He is regularly cited in top-tier publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and Axios, and has been featured in segments on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Yahoo Finance. Prior to this role, he worked on PitchBook’s publishing team, building custom reports across all asset classes and managing the development of analyst core research reports. 

Stanford received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Washington and is a CAIA charterholder. He is based in PitchBook’s Seattle office. 

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Articles by Kyle Stanford

AI’s safety slowdown spooks the market, delays IPOs, and hands incumbents more room to run

PitchBook analysts examine how a slowdown in AI development could impact private markets.
September 15, 2026

IPOs Are Not Dead but Demoted

This analyst note explores how AI-driven private valuation inflation and widening public-private pricing gaps have structurally shifted when and why VC-backed companies go public.
August 28, 2026

Why 2021 vintage funds shouldn’t panic yet

As this crop of US VC funds reaches its halfway mark, it’s important to look beyond distributions when evaluating future returns.
August 7, 2026

The 2021 Vintage’s Weak DPI Is Not the Warning Sign It Looks Like

The 2021 vintage’s 0.05x year-five DPI is the lowest since 1997, but early DPI barely predicts terminal returns—the 2012 vintage reached 2.04x by year 10 from a slow start. With TVPI at 1.21x, we examine what the next five years will decide.
August 6, 2026

Venture capital’s current recovery is all IRR, no DPI

The average DPI for 2021 vintage funds is the lowest five-year distributions to paid-in multiple this century.
August 4, 2026

US VC Fundraising and Returns Report

The Q2 2026 US VC Fundraising and Returns Report covers US VC fundraising activity and the latest data on fund performance and liquidity.
August 4, 2026

PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor

The Q2 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor presents a data-driven overview of the key trends defining the US venture capital landscape.
July 8, 2026

Global VC First Look

The First Looks are a preliminary release of top-line venture industry figures for the global, US, European, and Asia-Pacific markets, intended as a first-to-market source of key datasets and findings.
June 30, 2026

US Venture Capital Outlook: Midyear Update

This analyst note updates the predictions made in our 2026 US Venture Capital Outlook and analyzes how these forecast trends within deals, exits, and fundraising will play out during H2.
June 22, 2026

Global Private Market Fundraising Report

The Q1 2026 Global Private Market Fundraising Report offers a definitive review of the private market fund landscape with fundraising, cash flow, dry powder, and AUM data across geographies and seven strategies, including private equity and venture capital.
May 22, 2026