Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines have been placed in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, and instructions will follow at that time. This conference is being recorded and a replay of the call will be available in an audio webcast on the TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC website. Company management is pleased to share with you the company's results for the second quarter of 2021. Today, representing the company is Jim Labe, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Sajal Srivastava, President and Chief Investment Officer, and Chris Mathieu, Chief Financial Officer.
Before I turn the call over to Mr. Labe, I'd like to direct your attention to the customary safe harbor disclosure in the company's press release regarding forward-looking statements, and remind you that during this call, management will make certain statements that relate to the future events or the company's future performance or financial condition, which are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities law. You are asked to refer to the company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements or projections unless required by law.
Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements made during the call, which reflect management's opinions only as of today. To obtain copies of our latest SEC filings, please visit the company's website at www.tpvg.com. Now, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Labe.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining the TPVG second quarter earnings call. We made strong progress during this past quarter, from exceeding our funding target to maintaining high credit quality and to increasing our portfolio yield, return on average equity, and net asset value, or NAV. The most notable progress is the continued rise we are seeing in signed term sheets, which was one of the highest quarterly totals in TPVG's history. Our pipeline increased 50% over last quarter, and it has more than doubled since a year ago. We have substantial liquidity to meet this increased demand, and we're on course to achieve the growth targets we outlined for the second half of the year and drive consistent long-term growth of investment income and net asset value. The venture capital operating environment is remarkably strong right now.
In the first half of 2021, the totals for venture capital investments, exits, and fundraising neared or exceeded the totals for all of 2020. Deals of larger sizes continued to get announced. We're witnessing more investments specifically in late-stage companies, which is a market where TPVG operates. A total of $109 billion has been committed in the first half of the year to this stage, already matching the total for all of 2020. A total of 123 U.S. venture capital-backed companies IPO'd in the first half. 33 of them were SPACs. The market factors are in our favor. As you will hear, our warrant and equity portfolio stands to continue to benefit, along with our expectation of increased portfolio company exit events.
As we focus on capitalizing on this robust environment, it's critically important to maintain a disciplined approach to portfolio growth, and we don't ever want to compromise on credit quality. For that reason, we focus on high-quality companies that will enable us to generate strong returns from our debt investments, as well as from our equity and warrant positions. In the second quarter, we took important steps to meet this critical objective. While we under-earned our distribution for the quarter, the trends in our portfolio remain strong in terms of signed term sheets, increased fundings, and high credit quality. We expect to continue to generate NII in excess of our distribution over the long term, as we have cumulatively done so since our IPO.
We're particularly excited about TPVG's promising and deep portfolio, all created by our model of working with a select group of leading venture capital investors and having a targeted focus on venture growth stage companies. This has provided a solid foundation for us to execute against our plan. Our portfolio companies enable major changes in how people live, work, and use technology. Large-scale technology-driven transformations I think everyone sees are well underway in software, health and wellness, or as I think of it, health tech, robotics, e-commerce, fintech, and other sectors. The particular set of circumstances produced by COVID have accelerated significant market disruptions through technology and digital transformation. We've witnessed wholesale changes in enterprise and consumer behavior. These all promise to speed market acceptance of new products and services going forward, all good news for our portfolio companies.
We believe the tailwinds associated with these changes will persist well past the continued rollout of vaccines. It will continue to drive outsized growth across many of our portfolio companies. TPVG will continue to benefit from investments in many of these tailwind sectors, such as health tech. Curology, Nurx, Medly, and Hydrow are some of the companies in this sector where consumer demand, combined with regulatory actions, are driving massive disruptions in telemedicine, on-demand pharmaceutical delivery, and connected fitness. Last quarter alone, for example, Hims completed its $1.6 billion SPAC, Capsule raised $300 million, and Tempo closed a $220 million equity round. GreyOrange, Enjoy, and Transfix are all examples of our companies benefiting from the supercharged robotics and automation sector. COVID exposed the fragility of the world's supply chain. There's great need for continued investment in robotics and logistics to support the ever-growing shift to online procurement.
In this sector, Enjoy announced a $1.2 billion SPAC merger last quarter, and GreyOrange and Transfix have each raised over $125 million. Savage X, Grove, Minted, and Rent the Runway are examples of many of our e-commerce companies which have been boosted by the pandemic-driven change on the retail landscape. It impacted consumer purchasing behavior forever. Brands are now able to build relationships with their customers directly through digital marketing. E-commerce companies Imperfect Foods and Savage X both announced closing equity rounds greater than $100 million this year. Upgrade, Digit, and ActiveHours are just a few of our companies that are fintech recipients of the huge disruption underway in the core monetary infrastructure of the economy and the capital markets. The pandemic accelerated changes in legacy banking systems and payment platforms.
New lending platforms are underwriting risk and taking advantage of big data to address segments of the population that are currently underserved. Revolut, as an example, recently announced the closing of an $800 million equity round at a $33 billion valuation. The positive trends and our excitement in these technology sectors, if you can't tell, continues. We foresee substantial equity fundraising activity in the venture capital industry as a whole and within our portfolio in particular. It's a testament to our portfolio's quality. We believe future venture lending opportunities are large and plentiful given today's environment. This robust industry-wide equity financing activity continues to create demand for debt to complement or top off an equity raise in some cases. For many companies planning to raise equity, in today's environment, debt enables them to accelerate growth in order to achieve higher valuations when they raise.
In fact, we're now seeing demand is back again from those companies that raised large equity rounds last year, some of whom actually paid off their lines with us when they closed their round, and now they're seeking debt again. The volatility in the PIPE market of recent for SPACs has also created a number of situations where companies are now expecting the process to take longer, and they're raising more equity and debt with us to continue to remain private. Today's market is ripe for TriplePoint's venture lending strategy, and our portfolio is poised to continue to reap these rewards. As we've highlighted in the past, the fundamental strength is our differentiated platform.
TriplePoint Capital will continue to benefit from the sustainable tailwinds of the innovation economy. This is led by our deep relationships with founders and entrepreneurs, as well as leading venture capital firms. We'll continue to stick to our disciplined approach to the investment process based on identifying promising deal flow and standing at the ready with our deep liquidity to deliver attractive returns from our portfolio of debt, warrants, and equity investments. I'll now turn the call over to Sajal.
Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon. As Jim mentioned, the venture capital markets and the demand for venture lending continue to be particularly robust. We are making disciplined progress as we execute on our playbook for 2021. With regards to investment activity, during the second quarter, TriplePoint Capital signed $250.8 million of term sheets with venture growth stage companies, our fourth highest quarterly level for venture growth stage signed term sheets since TPVG's IPO seven years ago. We closed $102.5 million of debt commitments to six companies at TPVG. Signed term sheets and closed commitments were both up from last quarter. We continue to invest in high-quality companies in attractive and growing sectors. The sectors of our investments closely resemble the investment activity of the top venture capital funds.
As Jim mentioned, the sectors we continue to be most excited and focused on are software, fintech, e-commerce, and health tech, which are all quite active from a private markets and public markets perspective. Of the new portfolio companies this quarter, two are software-as-a-service or SaaS companies, two are direct-to-consumer subscription businesses, one is an online marketplace, and the last one is in the business of acquiring and rolling up profitable small businesses that sell on Amazon and other marketplaces. During the second quarter, we also received warrants valued at $2.2 million in seven portfolio companies in conjunction with our debt commitments, as compared to receiving warrants valued at $1.6 million in 13 companies last quarter. This increase demonstrates that we are capturing more equity upside potential from our portfolio companies while still raising the bar on yield.
We also made three direct equity investments valued at $200,000 during the quarter, of which one has more than doubled during the same quarter, again, reflecting the access we have to high-quality investment opportunities and the robust equity environment. This brings our total to $2.5 million of direct equity investments to six companies year to date. During the second quarter, we funded $76 million in debt investments to seven companies, which exceeded the high end of the $50 million-$75 million range we guided for quarterly gross fundings for Q2. Approximately 95% of our fundings came from new debt commitments that we closed in Q2. A real healthy statistic and demonstration of our efforts to drive utilization of our commitments more effectively. So far, we have funded over $18 million of new loans here in the third quarter.
Consistent with prior guidance, we expect gross fundings for Q3 and Q4 to come in between $100 million and $150 million per quarter, which is supported by our pipeline, our backlog of signed term sheets, high utilization rates of new debt commitments at close, sizable unfunded debt commitments, as well as the pattern of our portfolio companies drawing on existing unfunded debt commitments towards the second half of the year.
We also continue to build a high-yielding portfolio with the debt investments we funded during the quarter, carrying a weighted average annualized portfolio yield of 13.2% at origination, which is up from 12.6% last quarter for new investments. During the quarter, we had loan prepayments of $46 million. As a result, we achieved an overall weighted average annualized portfolio yield on total debt investments of 13.9% for the quarter. Excluding prepayments, core portfolio yield was 12%, slightly up from 11.9% last quarter.
Here in the third quarter, we've had $18 million of loan prepayments, generating $400,000 of accelerated income. We continue to see substantial equity fundraising activity in the venture capital industry and within our portfolio in particular, which is again, a testament to our portfolio's quality. During the quarter, five portfolio companies raised over $600 million of capital in total, in addition to ten portfolio companies raising over $700 million of capital in total in Q1. Moving on to credit quality, the credit outlook for our portfolio remains strong, with 90% of our debt investments in our top 2 categories. Consistent with Q1, no obligors were added to categories 3, 4, and 5, and no obligors were placed on non-accrual during the second quarter. In fact, the weighted average investment ranking of our debt investment portfolio improved to 2.06, compared to 2.11 as of the end of Q1.
During the quarter, one company was upgraded from category 3 to category 2 as a result of completing a financing, leaving only one company in category 3, which is Prodigy Finance, an international graduate student lending company. During Q2, Prodigy paid down $5 million on outstanding loans to us, and we're pleased to report that here in Q3, Prodigy completed its first securitization, issuing $228 million of investment-grade asset-backed securities, and our remaining loans will now switch from PIK interest to cash pay interest. Based on these and other developments at Prodigy, we expect to upgrade them to category 2 here in Q3. Our one category 4 portfolio company, Roli, continues to be our only loan on non-accrual, and our mark was flat with last quarter prior to currency fluctuations.
During the quarter, Talkspace completed their SPAC merger, and as of the end of the quarter, we have a total unrealized gain of $600,000 based on our warrant and equity positions in the company, even though the company never drew on their debt line and their unfunded commitment expired unused. This brings TPVG's total to three successfully completed SPAC mergers. We also have five portfolio companies with announced SPAC mergers in process. Bird Rides, Enjoy, Inspirato, and Sonder all announced their SPACs in Q2, and Live Learning Technologies announced its SPAC during the first quarter. Our cost basis in equity and warrants in these five companies totals $1.7 million, with a fair value of $3 million as of Q2.
Generally, we do not mark up our investments in these types of situations until merger exchange ratios are announced, and then we further discount the fair values given the uncertainty associated with their completion. As you can see, there hasn't been a slowdown in exit activity within our portfolio. In fact, we continue to have more than a dozen TPVG portfolio companies actively exploring IPOs, SPAC mergers, or M&A, which, if consummated, could unlock substantial additional value for our shareholders from our equity and warrant portfolio.
In addition, the private equity raising activity for our portfolio companies continues to result in significant enterprise value accretion, particularly in the fintech and software sectors. One portfolio company that I would like to highlight is Revolut, a company that the TriplePoint platform has supported since their Series A equity round in 2016. TPVG has been involved with since their Series C equity round as both a lender and an investor in the company. The Revolut team has built a global leader in the fintech space and announced in Q3 an equity raise at a $33 billion valuation. Although we have not completed our fair value process for Q3, we estimate TPVG's equity and warrant investments to be valued between $10 million-$20 million, up from $1.8 million as of Q2, or an increase between $0.25-$0.60 per share to net asset value.
While still unrealized gains, this is another great development in the TPVG portfolio, more importantly, not the only one that we believe will deliver meaningful gains, as we have many portfolio companies that are heads down and doing great things. Clearly, we are excited by the outlook for both unrealized and realized gains on the equity and warrant portfolio, which position us to provide shareholders with capital gains and to grow net asset value. We're also pleased with the solid credit outlook and the strong yield profile for the portfolio. As Jim mentioned, we will not compromise our highly selective investment strategy and our thoughtful portfolio construction for growth sake. We have a track record of covering our distribution since inception and have plenty of spillover income to cover the recent shortfall compared to NII.
Our large pipeline, strong levels of signed term sheets, increasing commitment growth, higher utilization rates, and meaningful levels of unfunded commitments are great indicators for near-term portfolio growth, which we believe will enable us to cover the distribution on a quarterly basis this year, but we are not going to force portfolio growth unnaturally. Jim and I are now starting our 23rd year of working together, and our track record is unmatched. We have been through several market cycles together and have consistently delivered exceptional performance throughout by being thoughtful and focused, and we are quite excited for what is in store for TPVG. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chris.
Thank you, Sajal, and hello, everybody. Let me take you through our financial results for the second quarter of 2021. Total investment income for the quarter was $20.3 million, with a portfolio yield of 13.9% on total debt investments for the second quarter, as compared to $23.8 million and 13.7% for the prior year period. Total investment income reflects a lower debt balance because of significant loan prepayment activity since the start of the pandemic. We're pleased that the portfolio yields continue to be strong and stable. Operating expenses were $10.9 million, an 11% reduction as compared to $12.3 million for the prior year period. We recorded lower operating expenses across all major categories, including $4.1 million of interest expense and amortization of fees, $3.1 million of base management fees, $2.4 million of incentive fees, $500,000 of administrative expenses, and $800,000 of general and administrative expenses.
Net investment income was $9.4 million, or $0.30 per share for the second quarter, compared to $8.9 million or $0.29 per share for the first quarter. Net unrealized gains on investments for the second quarter were $3.2 million or $0.10 per share, resulting primarily from favorable fair value adjustments on debt investments of $1.9 million, on warrant and equity investments of $800,000, and favorable changes in foreign exchange rates of $500,000. During the second quarter, the company recorded a one-time $681,000, or $0.02 per share, net realized loss on extinguishment of debt. This was the result of the full redemption on April 5th of our baby bonds. With this redemption complete, we expect a positive effect to earnings as we continue to lower our cost of capital going forward. Net asset value increased quarter-over-quarter and year-to-date.
Net increase in net assets resulting from operations was $12 million, or $0.39 per share, despite the one-time loss on extinguishment of debt and not covering the regular quarterly distribution. As of quarter-end, total net assets were $403.1 million, or $13.03 per share, compared to $401 million, or $13 per share as of March 31st, and $400.4 million, or $12.97 per share as of year-end. I am pleased to announce that our board of directors has declared a regular quarterly distribution of $0.36 per share from ordinary income on July 28th to stockholders of record as of August 31st to be paid on September 15th. We continue to retain significant spillover income, which totaled $12.4 million, or $0.40 per share, at the end of the quarter to support additional distributions in the future.
As we continue to experience portfolio growth over time and further record loan prepayment income, we expect to see net investment income grow to a sustained level to cover our current regular quarterly distribution levels. Let's move to our commitments. We are pleased to note that we have had high utilization rates of our new commitments during the quarter. We ended the quarter with $164 million of unfunded commitments to 22 portfolio companies. $70 million of this total will expire during 2021, and $85 million will expire during 2022 if not drawn prior to expiration. 57% of these unfunded commitments have contractual floating interest rates. All of these unfunded commitments have a prime rate floor of three and a quarter or higher. This compares to the existing loan portfolio outstanding at quarter end, which had 50% contractual floating interest rates.
Just a quick update on our credit facility, term debt, and funding capacity. At the end of the quarter, there were no outstanding balances under our $350 million revolving credit facility. As of quarter end, term notes outstanding totaled $270 million. We ended the quarter with a 0.67 x leverage ratio or an asset coverage ratio of 249%. In April, given the strength and diversity of our portfolio and the reasonable level of leverage we maintain, DBRS confirmed the company's investment grade BBB long-term issuer rating and upgraded TPVG's trend outlook to stable. As of quarter end, the company's total liquidity was $383 million, compared to $252 million as of December 31st. We believe that we have sufficient available capital today to execute on the funding estimates that have been provided during our call.
We continue to have a substantial investment funding capacity resulting from successful debt raises over the last 12 months and ongoing healthy cash flows from the current portfolio. We continue to see the ongoing contractual repayments of principal and loan prepayments as a natural and important part of our high quality and diversified venture lending portfolio. We expect to draw capital under our revolving credit facility when needed to grow the portfolio with accretive debt financing, which will benefit our shareholders. This completes our prepared remarks, and we'd be happy to take your questions. Operator, could you please open the line at this time?
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Our first question today comes from Finian O'Shea with Wells Fargo.
Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. First question, Sajal. Just to ask, I guess, about the growing venture landscape on both the debt and equity side. I know we talk about new debt entrants often on this call, but seeing more financial investment firms across the board going into venture equity. Can you talk about how, generally, these pockets are, in terms of their demand for venture debt in their strategies? Is it generally more or less?
Jim, actually, do you want to talk about the competitive landscape then maybe?
Yeah. Finn, from a competitive standpoint, at least in terms of the market we're serving, and recall, we're only working with a group of the better select venture capital investors. There has really been no change. It continues to be the aggressive equity environment, and there is some balance to that now, which is the only competition we worry about. There is certainly folks here and there that try to dabble in venture lending or new entrants. Why not? Look at the attractive yields that we generate in this business.
At the end of the day, the barriers are about reputation, references, relationships. It is not about just having capital and a business card. It continues to be about not only the venture ecosystem of a community of networking and deal flow and entrepreneurs that we work with, but it is also about the specialized due diligence in this whole segment that it requires. At least from our standpoint, there really hasn't been any kind of change in the venture lending competition arena, if that is what you are referring to.
Yes, sure. No, helpful. Another, I guess, sort of high level, as it relates to your origination portfolio. You saw decent repays this quarter, and decent impact of prepays on the top line, but feels like it's maybe not what it used to be. Something we've been thinking here in recent quarters, perhaps a trend. Is that something you observe, and how would you comment on that?
Finn, this is Sajal here. What I would say is, one of the benefits of working with quality sponsors and great companies is they support their companies. Particularly last year, right, during the uncertainty of COVID, what we saw was our VC investors deployed more capital into their portfolio companies. We saw a significant amount of equity raising within the portfolio. As a result, we saw particularly robust prepay activity last year. I think we've seen the mindset, or there's more balance in the system, I would say, right? Last year, it was more reactive in terms of the equity raise. We're seeing folks are kind of now back to good old growth. The capital raises are balanced with regards to equity raising and debt raising.
I would say because of that, I think we're seeing kind of stabilization, is what I'd say, or more return to normal when it comes to prepay levels and prepay activity. Then I think as Jim mentioned in his remarks, what's even more interesting is we're seeing those companies that were so well-funded with fresh equity last year now coming back to the debt markets because they realize that debt's a critical part of the cap structure, and they're looking to top off those raises. I'd say definitely we're seeing more balance and more thoughtful use of both equity and debt for companies that are raising equity now.
Sure. Makes sense. I'll go for a third one, if possible. We've seen, this is something that happens a little bit over time, but feels like another increasing trend of your portfolio companies showing up in other VCs, not only venture ones, but more typical ones. Would you describe that as these companies graduating into more traditional financing or those other VCs being perhaps more aggressive and all? That's all from me. Thank you.
Yeah. Again, I would say, listen, we're supportive of our portfolio companies. We have the full capacity of our platform to meet their needs, regardless of size or transaction type. I think, though, we stick to our knitting when it comes to return structure, and again, that thoughtful balance between debt and equity. We also have the benefit of insight with the venture investors, that we have those longstanding relationships. Because of our long history and let's call it the farm system of working through the platform, we also have the added insights of track record and performance of the credit. I would say, our thoughts are, we don't lose credits that we want to stay in, assuming the risk-return profile and balance is there. We hope all of our companies recognize that it's not about the cheapest or the largest.
It's about the balance and pedigree, as Jim talked about. Not everyone necessarily sees that. Again, we've been doing this 23 years. We know you can't win them all, and someone may come in with a dirt cheap term sheet or a ridiculous size transaction, and we're just not going to play in that market. We just, again, stick to our knitting. More power to others if they want to get more aggressive with regards to price or size where we don't want to.
Very well. Thank you, Sajal.
Our next question comes from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler.
Thanks. Good afternoon. Following up on the previous prepay question, just looking at the third quarter, I see the $18 million of prepayments through August 4th. Can you just talk a little bit about how July has compared to the first and second quarter? With the third quarter, would you estimate that third quarter prepayment should be similar to Q2 levels?
Chris, I'll start, and then maybe if you can do some of the quarter-over-quarter comparison. Crispin, welcome. I would say our prepay activity is primarily related here in Q3 to equity fundraising activity. I would say there's no pattern of, well, if they pay in July or first of the month or second of the month or third of the month, I think, for these companies in particular this quarter, it was a function of when equity rounds closed and large equity rounds. The timing of paying us off was related to that.
I would say in general, as I mentioned earlier in the prior questions, that we're definitely seeing more balance with regards to the prepay levels. Not all portfolio companies that raise equity are necessarily prepaying all or some of their debt. I'd say definitely more balanced. Chris, I don't know if you want to comment with regards to just prepay activity, where we are today versus Q2 or Q1?
Yeah. I would just add that the $18 million that was referenced on the call today is one transaction. Much like we've seen in the past, it's really measured onesie, twosie. We're not a credit card business where there's a lot of prepayment activity. It's very much specifically identified on short notice. I would say that's consistent for both first quarter, second quarter, and then the one transaction so far this third quarter.
Okay, thanks. That's helpful. Looking at the funded debt investments in the second quarter, I believe it was the $76 million to the seven portfolio companies. Can you just break out the mix of those seven companies? Was it a mix of new and existing portfolio companies out of the seven? What are the sub-sectors you funded there? I guess also, which sub-sectors are you most excited about right now?
I will work backwards and give Chris some time to pull in. I would say, clearly what we are particularly excited about is fintech, software, e-commerce, and health tech. Those are our core sectors that we deploy our capital in. I think, Crispin, as we said in the prepared remarks, the utilization this quarter of new commitment funding. A higher percentage of the portfolio companies that closed deals in Q2 actually utilized. I would say, a particularly high percentage were new customers because the transactions this quarter were new customers. I do believe there were maybe one or two companies that were from existing customers that had follow-on fundings on their unfunded commitments. Chris, any more detail you wanted to add?
Yeah. There were five new customers and two existing. Very consistent with what Sajal had referred to during his prepared remarks as far as existing relationships or existing commitments versus new commitments in the second quarter and actually funding as well.
Great. Thank you for taking my questions.
Our next question comes from Christopher Nolan with Ladenburg Thalmann.
Hey, guys. Chris, in your comments, did you say that you expect the quarterly EPS to cover the dividend in the second half?
I didn't say that. What our trend will be is to originate to get to a level where it's sustainable. We clearly need to get to the $100 million, $150 million in the third and fourth quarter, and then we're on track for doing that.
Great. I guess for Jim, strategically, given the discussion in Washington of raising the capital gains tax, what do you think that would be the implications for the venture debt market?
In the whole venture lending arena, I think it's mostly due to the nature of the companies and also the nature of the business and the tax losses and those kinds of things that changes in capital gains and the effect on venture lending, at least so far, hasn't come up as any kind of potential issue for companies, for prospects in the venture lending side. I do know on the equity side, venture capital, there's a lot more debate, a lot more issues, a lot more concerns. At least right now, we don't see that as a factor in terms of whether or not a company wants to use debt financing with warrants attached to grow their business.
Great. That's it for me. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Casey Alexander with Compass Point.
Hi, good afternoon. Just one probably not very important question, but the scheduled principal amortization was a lot higher for this quarter. Did that include a full payoff at maturity as opposed to two regular kind of quarterly drip-by-drip amortization?
Yeah. Casey, that included the $5 million that Sajal had referred to in his prepared remarks.
From Prodigy?
From Prodigy. Yeah. A little bit lumpier than you would have otherwise expected.
Yeah. We shouldn't be looking at that level of regular quarterly amortization next quarter.
That's right.
Yeah. Okay. Sajal, you made reference, and forgive me, I didn't quite catch it at the time, about doing something to encourage better utilization of the unfunded commitments that you have. I didn't quite catch it. If you could go over that again, it would be helpful.
Sure, Casey. As we looked of the $76 million that we funded this quarter, 95% of those were obligors where we closed transactions with them in the quarter. Rather than having entered a loan commitment and then waiting for them 6- 12 months to potentially draw on their unfunded commit with us. This quarter, we drove higher utilization of the new commitments to actually draw it closed.
Is there something that you're doing to encourage that? What's driving that change?
The yields went up and the warrant value went up. I would say it's an element of use case of how some of the companies were using the debt, just negotiating discussions with them and I would say, again, kind of where these companies are from a growth perspective, just wanting to accelerate growth and utilize the capital now. I'd say it's a little bit of structuring, a little bit of specific to the companies, and then a little bit of it is how the capital's actually being used.
Okay. All right, great. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Our next question comes from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities.
Great. Good afternoon, everyone. Great to see the growth of the pipeline, and maybe if we can just dig in a little bit more. If there's any other or any additional color you can share just on the makeup and how it's been evolving, whether it's new pricing structure and kind of comparing the first companies in versus the last companies in.
Jim, do you want to take the pipeline question?
Yeah. In terms of pipeline growth and some of the drivers, I'd say it's a little bit more of a balanced environment now. It was one thing during, let's say, the height of the 2020 pandemic, where there were huge rounds and entrepreneurs were grabbing big valuations and $200 million, $300 million at once in rounds. That was the primary way to finance companies. Now, I think, with a step back, even with these kinds of valuations in this environment, it's, after all, using debt to complement and enhance the equity raise. Using debt to finance acquisitions versus just pure equity dollars.
Some of the other things going on, as I mentioned in prepared remarks about the SPAC environment, some of the, call it, the interest rate increases and inflationary fears out there and everything. It's like, I would say there's a lot more, I guess I keep using the word balance here, that we're seeing. The pipeline literally increased 50% over last quarter, and I'm actually expecting that kind of a rate this current quarter. I don't know if I answered your question or not.
Yeah, Jim.
Yeah, go ahead.
If I might add, I would say, Devin, it's fundamentally the companies are focused on growth. What growth means is it's their accelerating spend, they need more capital. As Jim was referring to, now it's more of a balance between using equity and debt. I think it goes back to that core theme of right now, private equity investors for the next round are rewarding companies for top-line growth, for achieving those business milestones sooner and faster. It's in the alignment for these companies to accelerate growth because they're being rewarded for it, because that's what investors are focused on for those next rounds. The value proposition of venture debt continues to be right where less dilutive than raising equity. That's why we just continue to see strong demand.
Okay. That's great color. Thank you. Maybe a bigger picture question. Just love to get your reaction here. Clearly, you guys have done this a long time, as you think about the evolution of the venture space and really the quality of the companies that are in the space today, whether it's fintech or software, e-commerce or some of the areas that are attractive, how has that progressed? Have you seen an environment with as many, call it, quality companies as there are today in those areas? I know that it's been an evolution here, but in a positive way. Does that at all change your thinking on leverage comfort or kind of bigger picture, does that change anything, just given that there has been kind of a progression in terms of quality of, I think, the entire universe. Love to just get your thoughts on that.
Let me start. Jim, please feel free to add in. I would say, we've been through a couple of these cycles. We can only comment on the universe of the venture capital funds that we work with, right? It's an upper echelon, higher tier. What I would say, what definitely strikes me as different is, 20 years ago, during the tech bubble, you would see six or eight companies that did the same thing, and they were funded by premier VCs, but they all kind of did. I could tell you they were probably three different pet stores or equivalents. There was a lot more money funding, a lot more overlapping companies.
I think what makes us feel really great is despite these strong levels, if not record levels of VC equity investment activity, we're not seeing the fifth version of the whatever getting funded. I think, again, we're just seeing great companies, great sub-sectors getting funded, great teams. Yes, there is some overlap, but it's not as head-to-head as we saw or commoditized, which makes us feel really great. I think interestingly enough, I would say we're not seeing increased levels of leverage within those companies because, again, we're in a robust equity environment. We continue to have a playbook.
We know what the representative amount of debt a company at each stage of their development vis-a-vis their milestones and enterprise value and investor base should be. I don't think you'll see us kind of get overly aggressive from that perspective because we've been there, done that. I would definitely say we're just feeling great. These are great companies, solid companies, and great backing and doing good things and achieving a lot of great things.
Yeah, I can only add, I haven't been involved in it that long. The 1960s probably when VC started. My observation is pretty much along those lines as well as really venture capital, the field itself has progressed. Maybe it's a recency effect, I would absolutely agree that the quality is probably the highest over this long span of being involved in the business. I think in large part, some of it's due to venture capital is a lot more developed, has progressed through the years. VC firms are more organized. The sectors, technologies, structuring deals is much
Better understood now than maybe 10 years ago and 10 years before that. A lot of it's just learning from the ups and downs, excesses of the past, but it's a much more refined business and, gee, to see all this money in the market today and the opportunities for debt and the quality of these companies and entrepreneurs, again, in that upper echelon that we deal in is, I just have to use that overused word, exciting. This is very exciting times, and I think some of the best times we've seen in the market over the long span.
Okay. Great. I will leave it there. Thanks very much.
Our next question comes from Ryan Lynch with KBW.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, I just wanted to hit on the kind of market activity and the kind of outlook for exits and prepayments. So far in the first two quarters in 2021, it doesn't look like exits or prepayments have really been too elevated relative to the kind of activity that you're seeing in the venture capital space. I'm just wondering, do you expect that to change? One would think that given the activity in the venture space, that prepayments and exits would actually increase. Again, you haven't seen that. Do you expect that to occur in the second half of 2021? Do you expect your guys' fundings to be able to outpace that if that is going to occur?
Yeah. Ryan, I would say the prepayment activity for us has been primarily due to private raises of equity capital, not M&A or IPO financings. We're not banking on a takeout. We don't need that exit event to take us out. It's primarily equity fundraising because these companies just have so much cash in their banks that they're paying us off. When the exit event actually occurs, there's no prepayment because, again, we've been prepaid for some time. I'll pick on Revolut as an example of huge equity, Well, that's not an exit, but huge raise. They had paid us off some time ago. I would say clearly here and there, we do have some portfolio companies that, let's say the SPAC generation that may have some debt outstanding.
I would say historically, the takeout or the prepay has been as a result of an equity raise, and that's why when we see the exit event being at an IPO, an M&A or a SPAC merger, we're only seeing the uplift in the equity and warrants because we already saw the debt being prepaid. As we look to second half of this year, in terms of prepayment activity from our core equity raises, as I mentioned, we're just seeing a little more balance from portfolio companies that are fundraising or that are closing fundraisers that they're either waiting to pay off the debt, they're either not paying off the debt, or we're talking with them about creative ways to keep the debt outstanding.
Again, we're coming off a base of last year where there was just so much equity activity that we saw such unusually high prepay activity. Definitely more balance this year, and I think we expect more balances as we kind of end the year, which we think will then translate into meaningful portfolio growth.
Okay. That's helpful color. Understood. The other question I had was, you talked a lot about, and this is for the last really several quarters of the amount of capital coming into the venture capital ecosystem, the level of several portfolio companies engaging in SPAC mergers or raising significant amounts of capital in the private markets. It feels like it's a really robust exit environment/a good environment for capital raising and increasing valuations across the venture space. I understand that you guys do have a big gain likely coming in the third quarter from Revolut.
Are you surprised? Because it's a little bit surprising given the level of activity that there is in the marketplace, in the venture space, that your guys' book value's only up 40 basis points in the first two quarters in total in 2021? I would have expected more gains via the equity and warrant portfolios, just given how robust the backdrop of the environment you're in and kind of what you've talked about as far as capital raisings and deal activity.
Great question. Chris, do you want to take it and comment on private company valuation, private warrant equity valuation?
Yeah. It is an interesting question. The public versus private valuation cycle. It's not as simple as just taking the last round times the number of shares we hold. It's much more complicated than that. On the Revolut situation as an example, there's a range of acceptable private company valuation methodologies that have to be applied, including liquidity discounts and preferences and the like. The other thing that we're experiencing that Sajal talked a little bit about earlier on the call was the impact of our approach to being more conservative on valuations for those portfolio companies impacted by potential upside valuation on the SPAC side. There's a handful of names that are already in the SPAC process that we expect upside. You don't price deals today based on future value, but on current fair value.
I think there's some hidden gems in there, and so those will come out over time in the SPAC kind of ultimate de-SPACing and going through that process. Again, all of our portfolio companies are private. We have private warrants, preferred stock, substantially all preferred stock. It's a little bit more complicated, and there's a lag between those events compared to having all public listed securities where you see that pop right away. It's just less volatile in our portfolio. We didn't have the downside that you might have seen in other portfolios, say, a year ago from today.
Understood. I appreciate the commentary. Those are all my questions. Have a good afternoon.
Thank you.
This concludes our question- and- answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Labe for any closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. As always, I'd like to thank everyone for listening and participating in today's call. We hope everyone enjoys the rest of the summer and have a very healthy August and continuing remaining good health. We look forward to talking with you all again next quarter. Thanks again, everyone. Goodbye.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.