Which President Was the Best for Venture Capital?

It’s presidential election season.  What better time than now to ask which president since 1985 has seen the strongest venture capital performance during his administration? (Note: the choice of 1985 is based purely on availability of reliable data.  If further historical were readily available, it would have been included in this article.)

Within this period are Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Barack Obama.  Who wins? Care to take a guess?

Here’s a look.

Venture Capital by President without Labels

The following graphic is a look at venture capital dollar deals by presidency.  Before labeling the lines, take a guess which president is on top?

As a note of explanation: Each line represents a presidential administration.  The horizontal axis (x-axis) is the number of months into the given president’s administration.  The vertical axis (y-axis) is the percentage growth or decline in venture capital deals since the start of the respective president’s administration.

Interestingly, there are some massive differences.  The winner succeeds by a lot over second place.  Third place is far behind second place.  The remaining two barely register.

Source: National Venture Capital Association

Venture Capital by President

Unsurprisingly, Clinton comes out on top by a large margin.  During Clinton’s administration, venture capital deals expanded by an amazing 2,771 percent. Far, far, far behind in second place is Obama at 189 percent.

The remaining members include Reagan at +23 percent (that’s only for part of his administration), George W. Bush (+8 percent), and George H.W. Bush (-26 percent). George H.W. Bush was given the unlucky plot of coming into office at the end of the tech boom and subsequent bust.  It took years for the Clinton bubble to get washed out.

Source: National Venture Capital Association

Venture Capital Broken Down by Type of Venture Capital

The total deal volume is one way of viewing the data.  Another way is to break down the details.

Here’s the detail look.  The four colors are four stages of venture capital funding.  The first measure is Seed stage, Early stage, Expansion stage, and Later stage.

The massive expansion in Expansion stage funding is readily transparent during the Clinton administration.

Source: National Venture Capital Association

Conclusion

Perhaps completely unsurprising to industry observers, the strongest performance of venture capital occurred during the Clinton administration. Clinton had the fortunate (perhaps unfortunate) opportunity to be in the White House during the technology bubble.

The remaining members come in well behind with the other presidential administrations having comparable paltry growth.