Hercules Capital discloses its own venture loan book in its 10-K

The record

Hercules Capital, Inc. is a publicly traded business development company (BDC) that lends to venture-backed technology and life sciences companies, and its lending terms appear in its own SEC filings rather than in a survey. Its Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025, filed 12 February 2026, states that Hercules held debt outstanding with 127 portfolio companies, that its weighted average effective yield on debt investments was 12.9 percent for the fourth quarter of 2025 (a core yield, excluding one-time acceleration effects, of 12.5 percent), and that its total investment portfolio ended the year at $4,466.6 million.

What the sources establish

The filing states its own warrant practice in specific terms: 'our warrant coverage generally ranges from 3% to 20% of the principal amount invested in a portfolio company, with a strike price generally equal to the most recent equity financing round,' and that Hercules held warrants in 108 portfolio companies as of 31 December 2025, carried at a fair value of approximately $41.1 million. The filing also discloses that 87.1 percent of portfolio fair value sat in five industries, led by application software (24.3 percent) and drug discovery and development (23.3 percent), and that 97.9 percent of debt investments bore a floating rate. These are Hercules' own reported figures as of a stated date, not a market average.

Scope and revision

A 10-K reports one filer's own portfolio on one balance-sheet date; the 3-to-20-percent warrant coverage range and the 12.9 percent yield describe Hercules' book as of 31 December 2025, not venture debt generally, and Hercules itself states the yield and core yield are non-GAAP measures it defines in its own filing. The portfolio composition can and does shift between filings, as Hercules' EDGAR filing history shows: it reported 118 portfolio companies with debt outstanding a year earlier, so a reader citing the 127-company figure should carry the filing date with it. Individual loan terms within the portfolio are not uniform; the filing describes a range, not a single rate applied to every borrower.

The decision in front of you

A founder evaluating a venture debt offer, or an analyst benchmarking a lender's disclosed yield, can use this filing as a documented reference point for one lender's stated terms and portfolio composition on a named date, but should not generalize Hercules' figures to another lender or to a loan outside the disclosed 3-to-20-percent warrant range without checking that lender's own filing.

• Does the warrant coverage or yield figure you are citing carry the filing date and the as-of date the filing itself states?
• Is the figure a portfolio-wide weighted average, or a term specific to one loan you are evaluating?
• Have you checked whether a more recent 10-K or 10-Q has since restated the portfolio composition or yield?

A BDC's own filing is a primary record of what that lender actually holds and charges, dated and falsifiable against the next filing, which is a different kind of evidence than a lender's marketing description of its typical terms.