TVPI

The headline number for a fund

If you've put money into an Indian AIF or a venture/PE fund and you want one number that captures "how am I doing," TVPI is usually it. The formula is intuitive:

TVPI = (Distributions + Remaining Value) ÷ Paid-In Capital.

A TVPI of 1.0 means the fund has merely matched what you put in. A TVPI of 2.0 means the fund has *doubled* your money on paper — for every ₹1 you contributed, there's ₹2 of value sitting between cash returned and assets still held. SEBI-mandated AIF benchmarks in India use exactly these multiples — TVPI, DPI and RVPI — alongside IRR to grade fund performance.

TVPI = DPI + RVPI

TVPI's great strength is also its weakness: it mixes real and paper gains. It has two components.

DPI (Distributions to Paid-In) is the cash actually returned to you — money in the bank, realised and undeniable. RVPI (Residual Value to Paid-In) is the manager's *estimate* of what the still-unsold holdings are worth.

Add them: DPI + RVPI = TVPI. The distinction matters enormously. A fund boasting a TVPI of 2.5 that is almost entirely RVPI hasn't actually *returned* anything yet — that 2.5 is a mark, an opinion, vulnerable to a down-round or a soured exit. A fund with a TVPI of 1.8 that is mostly DPI has put real rupees back in your account.

How to read it as an LP

Never look at TVPI alone. Pair it with DPI to see how much of the value is real, and with IRR to factor in time — a 2x over four years is far better than a 2x over twelve.

My view: in India's maturing private-markets scene, where funds can carry flattering paper marks for years, I'd trust DPI over TVPI for any vintage that's old enough to have started exiting. Early in a fund's life, TVPI is the only meaningful gauge you have; later, the gap between TVPI and DPI tells you how much of the story is still a promise. As the saying goes among LPs — you can't spend TVPI; you can only spend DPI.