Quintile
Definition
A quintile is one of five equal groups formed by ranking a data set from lowest to highest and splitting it into fifths, each representing 20 percent of the total.
How it comes up in fundraising
Venture returns are famously skewed, so funds and LPs often analyze fund performance by quintile: the top quintile of deals typically drives most of a fund’s total return, while the bottom quintiles return little or nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Why do investors talk about quintiles instead of averages?
Averages hide the power-law shape of venture outcomes. A quintile breakdown shows how concentrated returns actually are in a small number of top-performing investments.
How is a quintile different from a percentile?
A quintile is a fixed 20 percent slice of ranked data, while a percentile marks any single point in that ranking, for example the 90th percentile.
Put this term to work
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