Total Value to Paid In (TVPI): What This Private Equity Metric Tells You

Last updated: September 7, 2026.

Quick Answer

TVPI (Total Value to Paid In) is a private equity ratio that divides everything an investment is worth, cash already distributed plus the current value of what the fund still holds, by the capital paid in. It equals DPI plus RVPI, so a TVPI of 1.43 means the investment is worth 1.43 times what was contributed. TVPI converges with DPI once every holding is sold, and it is only comparable across similar vintage years. Aleta's private markets reporting recalculates TVPI from source statements so it means the same thing in every fund.

Key Takeaways

• TVPI equals cumulative distributions plus residual value, divided by paid-in capital, which is the same as DPI plus RVPI.

• A TVPI above 1.0 means the investment is currently worth more than was paid in, counting both realized and unrealized value.

• When a fund is fully liquidated, RVPI falls to zero and TVPI equals DPI.

• With industry distributions at 14% of net asset value in 2025, the lowest since the global financial crisis, a growing share of TVPI sits in the unrealized RVPI component (Bain).

• TVPI ignores the time an investment has been held, so it should only be compared across funds with similar vintage years.

• Funds calculate and report the metric on different bases, so cross-fund comparison requires recalculating on one consistent method.

Why Does TVPI Matter in Private Equity?

Distributed to Paid In (DPI) + Residual Value to Paid In (RVPI) = Total Value to Paid In (TVPI).

I could end the article here, but I don’t think that would be fair. You probably didn’t come here for just one sentence. Jokes aside, while TVPI is a fairly simple metric, I believe it deserves some context and a little further explanation.

Let’s get to it.

What Does a Private Equity Fund Overview Look Like?

TVPI sits alongside DPI, RVPI, and IRR in the standard overview a private equity investor receives, and it only makes sense read next to them. I want to start by showing you an example of an overview of investments in four private equity funds.

In the second column from the left, the year of the fund's establishment is indicated – also referred to as the vintage year. Following that, the market value of your investment in the fund is provided. The report also offers an overview of your commitments and unfunded commitments, as well as your contributions to (Paid in) and distributions from (Paid out) the funds.

Additionally, the overview shows the four key private equity metrics: DPI, RVPI, TVPI, and IRR. Fund 3 shows the relationship clearly: a DPI of 1.44 and an RVPI of 0.36 add up to a TVPI of 1.80, with most of the value already returned as cash. In our knowledge hub, you can find in-depth explanations of the other three of the four key metrics.

Return represents your total return on the investment – the sum of what you have received from the fund, combined with the unrealized value of your investment in the fund, minus what you have contributed to the fund.

While these metrics are part of the reporting for the majority of private equity funds, it's important to be aware that the calculation basis for these figures may vary from fund to fund. We delve into this challenge in detail in our article on how to create a comprehensive private equity overview.

These overviews are crucial for continuously monitoring the performance of the various funds and maintaining an overview of your unfunded commitments, ensuring you always know how much liquidity you need to meet capital calls from the funds.

Aleta's private markets reporting builds this overview from the underlying capital account statements across every fund and manager, so TVPI, DPI, RVPI, and IRR are always computed on the same basis rather than copied from each fund's own report.

Without further ado, let’s get down to business.

What Does TVPI Measure?

Every private equity fund reports two kinds of return at once, cash already returned and value still held, and TVPI is the metric that adds them together.

The way private equity funds work is that they raise capital from investors, which they use to buy or invest in portfolio companies. Subsequently, the funds assist the companies in realizing their potential and eventually sell them for a profit after several years.

The fund doesn’t acquire or invest in all the portfolio companies simultaneously, nor does it sell them all again at the same time. Consequently, at some point during the lifespan of a fund, you’ll begin to have both an unrealized return and a realized return on your investment. These are typically reported to you as RVPI and DPI, respectively.

You can look at RVPI and DPI separately, but you may also like to get an overview of your total return. That is, your realized return plus your unrealized return.

Enter Total Value to Paid In.

TVPI tells you how many birds you have in your hand and in the bush (if you don’t get this reference, it means you didn’t read the article on RVPI).

In simple terms, it’s the sum of DPI and RVPI, and it indicates the total return on your investment. It’s a ratio metric that indicates how many times you've recouped your investment in both realized and unrealized returns.

Let’s swing back to the lemonade example from our DPI article: You dish out $100 to your kids for lemons and sugar, and they whip up a lemonade stand. Midway, they've used half the cash and made $125 in sales.

Let’s also say you’re the parent who wants it all and you demand to get all of the money earned from selling lemonade. The $125 gives you a DPI of 1.25 because you’ve gotten the $100 back 1.25 times.

Assuming your kids can pull off another round of $125 sales with the ingredients they buy with the money they have left, the lemonade business has a market value of $125 and an RVPI of 1.25.

As such, at this point, your TVPI of your investment in the lemonade stand is: DPI of 1.25 + RVPI of 1.25 = 2.5.

TVPI is the sum of DPI and RVPI, and it indicates the total return on your investment. It’s a ratio metric that indicates how many times you have recouped your investment in both realized and unrealized returns.

How Do You Calculate TVPI?

TVPI is total value divided by paid-in capital, where total value is cumulative distributions plus the current residual value of the fund holding.

TVPI = (Cumulative distributions + Residual value) ÷ Paid-in capital

Because DPI is distributions divided by paid-in capital and RVPI is residual value divided by paid-in capital, the same formula can be written as TVPI = DPI + RVPI.

Using PE fund 1 from the overview above: distributions of 26,785,016 plus a market value of 39,520,328 gives a total value of 66,305,344. Divided by paid-in capital of 46,306,932, that is a TVPI of 1.43. The DPI of 0.58 and RVPI of 0.85 add to the same figure.

Two inputs move TVPI more than investors expect. Residual value is the fund's own quarterly valuation of unsold holdings, so TVPI shifts every time the manager marks the portfolio. Paid-in capital can also differ between funds depending on whether management fees sit inside or outside the commitment, which changes the denominator. Aleta's private markets reporting recalculates all four metrics from the source statements on one consistent definition, so a TVPI of 1.43 means the same thing in every fund on the report.

How Does TVPI Change Over a Fund's Life Cycle?

TVPI moves for two reasons only, a valuation change in the unsold portfolio or a distribution that transfers value from the RVPI column into the DPI column.

Since TVPI accounts for both your realized and unrealized returns, the metric should generally increase as the fund progresses through its life cycle and does its magic with the portfolio companies and later exits them with a profit.

When the fund is closed, TVPI and DPI should be equal, as all investments are realized at this point. Like DPI, TVPI ideally should be above 1 after the fund is closed, indicating that you’ve made a profit on your investment.

It's important to note that, like DPI and RVPI, TVPI doesn’t consider the time period of the investment. If you want to factor in the time element in evaluating your investment, you can’t compare TVPI across private equity funds – unless, to a certain degree, they have similar vintage years – as the figure will vary depending on how far along the funds are in their life cycles.

You can compare TVPI across funds if the time spent generating returns is not crucial to you, or if you want to compare how many times you've recouped your investment in monetary terms across different funds.

The best metric for comparing the different funds’ performance while taking into consideration how long you’ve held the investment is the funds’ Internal Rate of Return (IRR). Read more about this crucial metric in our knowledge hub.

However, be aware that comparing different types of funds can be like comparing apples and oranges (or lemons) as, for example, a capital fund and a venture fund have very different strategies and risk profiles.

Since TVPI accounts for both your realized and unrealized returns, the metric should generally increase as the fund progresses through its life cycle and does its magic with the portfolio companies and later exits them with a profit.

What Is a Good TVPI?

There is no single threshold, because a TVPI of 1.2 is unremarkable for a 2023 vintage and disappointing for a 2013 vintage. What can be read from the number at any stage is how much of the value is real cash and how much is still a valuation.

The last row matters more now than at any point in the past fifteen years. Bain's Global Private Equity Report 2026 found that distributions as a share of net asset value stayed flat at 14% in 2025, a level not seen since 2008 to 2009, and that the 2017 to 2021 vintages have underdelivered against their DPI benchmarks in every single year. A fund can report a healthy TVPI while returning very little cash, which is why the gap between TVPI and DPI has become the first thing experienced investors look at.

Aleta's private markets forecasting models when that unrealized value is likely to convert to distributions, 12 to 24 months forward, so the office can plan liquidity around the RVPI it expects to receive rather than the TVPI it is being shown.

How Do You Keep an Overview of Private Equity Investments Across Funds?

No two private equity funds calculate or report their metrics the same way, and that lack of a common standard is what makes tracking results and unfunded commitments across funds the hardest part of the job.

This means that as an investor, unfortunately, you can’t simply compare the metrics and return percentages coming from different funds.

Aleta's family office software draws on years of private equity reporting experience to give you an accurate overview of every fund's returns and your unfunded commitments, and was named Best Data Provider at the Family Wealth Report Awards 2026 and Best Consolidated Reporting at the WealthBriefing Awards 2026.

By applying the same method for calculating various private equity metrics across all funds, we enable you to compare the results of the funds. This way, you're better equipped to make informed decisions regarding your private equity investments.

No two private equity funds calculate or report their metrics the same way.