Two endowments disclose their venture bets unevenly

The record

Harvard Management Company's own fiscal year 2025 annual report, dated October 2025, states that as of 30 June 2025 the endowment's portfolio allocation included 14% in 'Venture capital' and a further 10% in 'Growth venture,' within a broader 41% allocation to private equity; the same report states the endowment was valued at $56.9 billion and returned 11.9% for the fiscal year. Yale University, in its own press release dated 24 October 2025, states its endowment 'earned an 11.1% investment return, net of fees, for the year ending June 30, 2025' and grew to $44.1 billion, without publishing a venture-capital-specific allocation figure in that release.

What the sources establish

Harvard's own report is the more granular of the two on this question: it names a venture capital line, 14%, separate from buyout and growth-buyout private equity, for the same fiscal year Yale reports on. Yale's own release states an aggregate return and total value, attributes fiscal-2025 underperformance in part to 'leveraged buyouts and, more meaningfully, real estate,' and gives a ten-year annualized return of 9.4%, but names no venture-capital-specific figure anywhere in that document. This is not evidence that Yale allocates nothing to venture; it is evidence that Yale's own public disclosure, in this release, does not break the endowment down to that level, while Harvard's does. A reader cannot compare the two endowments' venture allocations because only one of them has published one.

Scope and revision

Harvard's allocation figures are stated 'as of June 30, 2025' and describe portfolio composition, not committed-but-uncalled capital or a target policy weight; the same report notes that 'rounding results in a total percentage greater than 100%.' Yale's release is a short annual announcement, not a full financial statement; a more detailed breakdown, if Yale publishes one elsewhere, is not part of the document cited here. Both figures will be superseded by each institution's fiscal 2026 disclosure.

The decision in front of you

Editorially: a fund raising from university-endowment limited partners can use Harvard's own disclosed venture line as one data point on how a large, sophisticated allocator currently weights the asset class, but should not assume Yale's absence of a published figure means a smaller allocation, only that Yale's public release does not state one, which is itself worth noting when a pitch deck cites 'endowment allocations to venture' as a single market figure.

• Does the cited allocation figure specify an 'as of' date, and how does it compare to the fiscal year discussed?
• Is an endowment's silence on a specific asset class evidence of a low allocation, or simply a disclosure choice?
• Does the figure describe current portfolio weight, a target policy weight, or committed-but-uncalled capital?

Two of the most closely watched endowments in venture history disclose their own portfolios at different levels of detail, and a market figure for 'endowment venture allocation' built by combining them would rest on two different kinds of disclosure, not one consistent measure.