Venture investment activity covers many phases of financial stages. In spite of the increased attention to the venture capital process during the last three decades, misconceptions about the industry still exist. This paper examines annualized returns for different stages of financing in venture-backed public companies. The unique database includes current actively and inactively trading public companies. The data enable one to ascertain the relationship among companies’ annualized rates of return, share price at the Initial Public Offering (IPO) date, IPO size, current total shares, and the role of venture capital. Annualized returns are found to be positively affected by cumulative returns, IPO year, current price, and IPO size in dollars while being negatively influenced by IPO price. The paper refutes the myth that investors demand very high rates of return to compensate for the risks involved in financing ventures.