上周五晚些时候，我计划采访一家企业技术公司的CEO。这家公司本周将宣布新一轮的风投融资。我经常接到这类邀请，可能每天都有十几次。我之所以同意做这次采访是因为它的邀请函。它管十分简短，甚至连这家公司的名称都没有提到。相反，它只是透露，本轮融资对这家神秘公司的估值为10亿美元。

    是的，10亿美元。又是一家独角兽式的企业。拉风的存在。这样的描述（显然）激发了我打电话的念头，尽管我连要打给谁都不知道。

    这将是我两周来的第3篇“独角兽”报道，3月13日的报道是网络订票平台Eventbrite，3月20日报道了移动信息传输公司Tango。如果算上我采访Castlight投资人布莱恩•罗伯斯的文章，这篇可以说是第四篇。我甚至都挤不出时间来报道Airbnb的融资交易，这家公司显然正在竭力按100亿美元估值进行融资（即非常神秘的Decacorn）。

    每一家获得10亿美元估值的非上市公司都非常了不起。要知道，十年前，这些公司就算是在创始人本人的眼中也是前景难料。因此，在此向所有这些成功者致敬，然后继续进行跟踪报道。

    但有一个问题有点开始困扰我：我们这样关注阶段性估值庞大的公司，可能导致我们一定程度上忽视那些估值未达到10位数但财务数据更好的公司。我们报道投资人时，这一点尤其突出。

    我的意思是：假设ABC风投对一家交易后估值10亿美元的公司投资了5,000万美元，获得5%股份（是的，这里我进行了简化分析）。随后，这家公司上市，获得估值20亿美元，然后二级市场市值升到了50亿美元。突然之间，这笔投资的价值达到了2.50亿美元。太棒了。另外，假设123风投对一家交易后估值2,500万美元的公司投资500万美元，这家公司被雅虎（Yahoo）以2.50亿美元收购（因此向123风投支付5,000万美元）。在我看来，123风投的交易似乎更划算，因为它实现了10倍的投资回报，而ABC风投仅实现了5倍投资回报。

    但媒体不会公开为123风投唱颂歌，因为他们没有逮住“独角兽”。不过，现实是投资10亿美元以上公司的风投大部分也没有抓住“独角兽”。当然，有些公司确实捕获了“独角兽”（往往投资时间很早），但大多数进入很晚，只是搭一段顺风车。

    以《福布斯》（Forbes）杂志年度最佳创投人排行榜（Midas List）为例，这份排行榜宣称对全球顶尖的科技风投人进行排行。排行计算的主要依据是退出成本（即收购或IPO），但同时也收录了几家尚未上市的独角兽公司(这可以解释为什么Accel的吉姆•布雷耶即使是在Facebook上市前也能在排行榜上占据榜首位置)。就算123风投有十几家账面市盈率达到两位数的未上市公司也没用，因为这些公司没有一家的估值达到了10亿美元。相比持有一家籍籍无名的生物科技公司的Series A优先股（刚刚以1.50亿美元或2亿美元的估值完成了Series D融资），不如参与Airbnb大规模的Series C融资。

    是的，风投是一项关于关注度的生意。每只基金都需要一、两家表现特别出众的公司来实现他们向投资者承诺的回报率。但可能我们都需要更加努力地来找到这些表现出众的公司，而不只是痴迷于那些独角兽。（财富中文网）

    Later today I'm scheduled to interview the CEO of an enterprise technology company that next week will announce a new round of venture capital funding. It's the sort of thing that I get asked to do a lot -- probably a dozen times per day -- but agreed to this one because of a very brief PR pitch that didn't even include the company's name. Instead, it simply informed me that the funding valued this mystery company at $1 billion.

    Ah, $1 billion. The thing that unicorns are made of. The thing that's cool. The thing that (apparently) gets me to take a call before I even know who's going to be calling.

    It would be my third "unicorn" story in the past two weeks, following online ticketing platform Eventbrite last Thursday and mobile messaging company Tango yesterday morning. Or my fourth, if you include my Q&A with Castlight investor Bryan Roberts. And I couldn't even find time to write about Airbnb's apparent efforts to raise at a whopping $10 billion valuation (i.e., the much mythologized Decacorn).

    In each and every case, hitting a $1 billion private valuation is a remarkable accomplishment. Remember, these usually are companies that weren't even a gleam in their founder's eyes at this time last decade. So kudos to all to achieve, and continued coverage.

    But here's the thing that's beginning to trouble me a bit: The collective we are focusing so much on these massive interim valuations that we, arguably, aren't paying enough attention to better financial outcomes that don't include nine zeros. And this is particularly true when we cover those who are writing the checks.

    Here's what I mean: Imagine that ABC Ventures invests $50 million at a $1 billion post-money valuation, in exchange for a 5% equity stake (yes, I'm really simplifying things here). Then the company goes public at a $2 billion valuation, and later trades up to $5 billion. Suddenly that investment is valued at $250 million. Fantastic. Now what if 123 Ventures invests $5 million at a $25 million post-money valuation, and the company gets acquired by Yahoo for $250 million (thus paying out $50 million to 123 Ventures). Seems to me that 123 Ventures arguably got the better deal, in that it recognized a 10x multiple, whereas ABC Ventures recognized a 5x multiple.

    But we don't publicly venerate 123 Ventures, because they didn't have a "unicorn." The reality, however, is that the majority of VC firms invested in $1 billion+ companies didn't really have unicorns either. A few certainly did -- those who were at the very beginning -- but most came along so late in the game that they were just hitching a ride.

    Take what Forbes does with its annual Midas List, which purports to rank the world's top tech venture capitalists. Most of the calculations are done based on exits (i.e., M&A or IPOs), but Forbes also incorporates data on a handful of unicorn-type companies that are still private (thus explaining, for example, how Accel's Jim Breyer topped the list even before Facebook went public). Never mind if 123 Ventures has a dozen still-private companies where it has double-digit paper multiples, because none of those companies are valued at $1 billion. Better to buy into a big Series C for Airbnb than to have Series A preferred stock in a quasi-anonymous biotech that just raised its Series D at a $150 million or $200 million valuation.

    Yes, venture capital is a hits business. Each fund needs one or two giant outliers in order to generate the returns they promise investors. But perhaps we all need to do a better job identifying those outliers, as opposed to just obsessing over unicorns.