If you’re searching this, you’re probably in one of three situations:

You’ve raised your first or second fund and your LPs are gently (or not so gently) asking for “more standardized reporting.”
Your admin is sending PDFs that feel… dated, and you’re worried they don’t meet 2025 expectations.
You’re about to launch a new fund and you want your reporting to look institutional from day one.

Wherever you are, you’re not alone. LP reporting expectations have moved a lot in the past few years: ILPA updated its templates in 2025, regulators have taken swings at private fund rules, and LPs themselves are asking for deeper transparency on performance, fees, and risk.

This guide walks through what "good" LP reporting looks like for a venture fund in 2025—practically, not theoretically.

1. Why LP Reporting Matters More in 2025

For your LPs, an LP report is their primary window into the fund: performance, risk, fees, and whether you’re doing what you said you would. A recent overview describes LP reports as detailed documents covering performance, portfolio updates, risks/opportunities, and expenses/fees, usually on a quarterly or semi-annual cadence.

At the same time:

Standards are hardening. ILPA’s Private Equity Principles and best-practice papers explicitly push for greater transparency, alignment of interests, and standardized reporting.
Templates have evolved. ILPA’s Reporting Template v2.0 (2025) and the new Performance Template provide detailed schemas for fees, expenses, carry, and performance, intended to supplement quarterly reporting rather than replace it.
Regulation is noisy, even if contested. The SEC’s private fund adviser rules would have required standardized quarterly statements on fees and performance; parts of the package were later vacated by a US appeals court, but the direction of travel (more structured disclosure) is clear.

Even if you're not legally forced into a detailed format, your LPs are reading these standards and quietly benchmarking you against them. Peony provides secure data rooms with identity-bound access and watermarking for secure LP reporting document sharing.

2. The Core VC LP Reporting Pack

A “grown-up” VC LP reporting package in 2025 generally includes:

Summary letter / MD&A
Fund-level financials and capital accounts
Performance metrics (net of fees) and cash-flow profile
Portfolio company schedule and updates
Fees, expenses, and carry detail (ideally ILPA-style)
Optional: ESG / impact and risk commentary

ILPA’s Quarterly Reporting Standards outline a similar core: summary letter, balance sheet, schedule of investments, statement of operations, statement of cash flows, plus supplemental management reports and fee templates.

Let's break each piece down.

3. Performance: How LPs Actually Want to See Returns

LPs don’t just want a single IRR number. Best-practice guidance from Invest Europe, ILPA, and multiple VC resources is consistent on this: use a blend of metrics and always show them net of fees and carry.

At minimum, show:

Net IRR – time-weighted return of the fund
TVPI (Total Value to Paid-In) – realized + unrealized value / capital paid in
DPI (Distributed to Paid-In) – cash and shares actually distributed / capital paid in
RVPI (Residual Value to Paid-In) – remaining NAV / capital paid in

Invest Europe explicitly recommends reporting these metrics at fund level on a net-of-fees, net-of-carry basis and clarifying how TVPI splits into DPI + RVPI.

Good practice:

Show performance since inception and over recent periods.
Include simple charts of cumulative contributions, distributions, and NAV over time.
Provide vintage and benchmark context where you can (e.g., relative to Cambridge/PitchBook indices, if you have access).

The goal is to give LPs a clear picture of both realized and unrealized performance and how it is evolving, not just a vanity IRR.

4. Financials, Cash Flows & Capital Accounts

Your LPs need to reconcile what’s happening in the fund with their own books.

ILPA’s reporting standards and capital call / distribution best practices emphasize:

Fund financial statements
- Balance sheet
- Statement of operations (with a breakdown of gains/losses and expenses)
- Statement of cash flows
Partners’ capital account statements
- Opening capital
- Contributions, distributions, management fees, carry
- Ending capital balance per LP
Cumulative reconciliation Capital call and distribution notices should tie cleanly into cumulative cash-flow metrics and fund financials, so LPs aren’t manually reconstructing history.

Even if your administrator produces these, you as GP should check they're consistent and readable – not just technically correct. Peony provides secure data rooms with analytics to track LP engagement with financial reports.

5. Portfolio Company Reporting: Depth without Drowning

This is the part LPs actually enjoy reading—if it’s done well.

ILPA’s Quarterly Reporting Standards and supplemental portfolio company checklist suggest including, for each active company:

Basic info: name, HQ, sector, entry date, stage
Your position: cost, ownership %, current valuation, valuation method
Key developments: product, team, commercial milestones, notable risks
Realizations: for exited positions, summary of outcome and multiple

The trick in 2025 is signal-to-noise:

Group companies by status (e.g., core winners, stable, underperforming) and by vintage.
Use concise narrative on the top 10–15 holdings that drive most NAV or risk; keep the rest more tabular.
For AI or regulated sectors, add a sentence on regulatory, technical, or data risks—it’s top of mind for many LPs now.

A recent LP reporting guide notes that LPs value not just performance tables but clear coverage of "risks and opportunities" at portfolio level. Peony provides AI-native data rooms with instant Q&A so LPs can ask natural-language questions about portfolio companies and get instant answers with citations.

6. Fees, Expenses, and Carry: Embracing ILPA 2.0

Fees are where LPs get understandably sensitive.

The ILPA Reporting Template v2.0 (2025) was specifically updated to give LPs a more granular, standardized look into:

Management fees (base, rates, offsets)
Fund-level expenses (broken down by category)
Transaction and monitoring fees and how they’re shared/offset
Carried interest calculations and accruals

The updated template also aligns more closely with general ledger accounts, making it easier for LPs to reconcile numbers and compare across managers.

You don't have to adopt every line item overnight, but moving toward ILPA-style fee transparency will put you ahead of many peers and reduce back-and-forth on one-off data requests.

7. Regulatory Overlay: What You Actually Need to Care About

In the US, the SEC’s 2023 private fund adviser rules would have required standardized quarterly statements on fees and performance within specific time frames (45/75 days, depending on fund type).

In mid-2024, a federal appeals court vacated key parts of those rules, holding that the SEC exceeded its authority.

What this means in practice:

The legal obligation to follow that exact quarterly statement format is gone (for now).
The directional expectation from many institutional LPs—standardized, ILPA-ish reporting on fees/performance—is still very much there.

In Europe, Invest Europe’s Investor Reporting Guidelines continue to shape what sophisticated LPs expect, particularly around net performance metrics and consistent cash-flow reporting.

Net-net: if you aim to be ILPA/Invest-Europe-aligned, you'll be in a good spot irrespective of regulatory swings.

8. How Often and in What Format Should You Report?

Most institutional LPs expect:

Quarterly reports – standard, with full performance, portfolio, and financials.
Annual audited financials – plus the Q4 letter.
Ad-hoc updates – for major events (large exits, down rounds, key team changes).

Best practice in 2025:

Quarterly PDF or web portal, plus machine-readable exports (Excel/CSV) for capital flows, holdings, and fee template data—this is where ILPA templates and performance schemas help.
A consistent look and feel across funds, so LPs investing in multiple vehicles don't have to relearn your reports each time. Peony provides secure data rooms with password protection and watermarking for professional LP reporting portals.

9. Leveling Up Your LP Reporting in 2025

If you want your reporting to feel genuinely best-in-class:

Standardize on ILPA + one performance schema. Use ILPA Reporting Template v2.0 for fees/expenses and a consistent performance section covering net IRR, TVPI, DPI, RVPI.
Tell the story, not just the numbers. In your summary letter, explain how the portfolio is evolving, how the macro environment is affecting you, and where you see risk. LPs can handle bad news; what they want is no surprises.
Automate the boring parts. Use your admin, portfolio monitoring tools, or custom workflows so you’re not manually rebuilding the same tables each quarter. The less time you spend formatting, the more you can spend on thoughtful analysis.
Create a simple LP reporting "SLA." Decide (and share) when LPs can expect reports, what they contain, and who to contact with questions. Then hit those marks consistently. Peony provides AI-native data rooms with instant Q&A and question analytics to reduce LP questions and accelerate reporting.

10. Common Questions from Fund Managers

How long should a quarterly LP report be? Enough to cover the sections above clearly. For early-stage VC funds, that often ends up in the 10–25 page range, plus appendices for detailed holdings.

Do I need separate reporting for each share class or LP type? You typically need class-specific capital account details and fee/carry schedules where economics differ (e.g., founders’ class vs standard LP class), but portfolio and fund-level performance sections can often be shared.

What if my data isn't yet clean enough for ILPA templates? Start where you are: adopt the structure, then gradually increase detail. Even a partially populated ILPA-style table shows good faith and makes it easier to improve over time.

If you're reading this feeling a bit behind, that's okay. Most emerging managers are still catching up with the 2025 standard. The fact that you care enough to upgrade your LP reporting already puts you in the right camp: the camp that treats LPs as true partners, not just sources of capital.

And in venture, that mindset compounds just as much as returns do. Use Peony for secure LP reporting data rooms with AI-native Q&A, question analytics, identity-bound access, password protection, and watermarking to streamline LP reporting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's included in LP reporting for venture capital funds?

LP reporting includes summary letter, fund-level financials, performance metrics (net IRR, TVPI, DPI, RVPI), portfolio company updates, fees/expenses/carry detail (ILPA-style), and optional ESG/risk commentary. Peony helps: upload all LP reporting materials to a secure data room with AI-native Q&A so LPs self-serve questions and accelerate reporting.

How do you share LP reports securely?

Peony is best: upload all LP reporting materials to a secure Peony room with identity-bound access, password protection, watermarking, and tracking, then share one protected link instead of email attachments or Google Drive links.

What's the best data room for LP reporting?

Peony is best: upload all LP reporting materials to a secure AI-native data room with instant Q&A, question analytics, identity-bound access, password protection, and watermarking for professional LP reporting.

Can you see what questions LPs ask during reporting?

Most traditional data rooms only show page views. Peony provides complete question analytics: see what LPs ask most, which topics cause confusion, and areas that need clarification for proactive follow-ups.

How do you improve LP reporting efficiency?

Standardize on ILPA templates, automate the boring parts, tell the story not just numbers, and create a simple SLA. Peony helps: upload all materials to a secure data room with AI-native Q&A so LPs self-serve 80–90% of questions, reducing your time and accelerating reporting.

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Venture Capital LP Reporting Guide in 2025: Complete Guide for Fund Managers