MOIC Calculator

MOIC — Multiple on Invested Capital — is the most direct way to answer the question every limited partner actually asks: for every dollar I put in, how many dollars came back? It is a simple ratio with no time dimension, which makes it both the easiest performance metric to compute and the hardest one to misinterpret. A 2.0x MOIC means the investor doubled their money. A 0.8x MOIC means they lost twenty cents on the dollar.

Private equity firms, venture capital funds, search funds, family offices, and real estate sponsors all report MOIC alongside IRR because the two metrics answer different questions. IRR tells you how fast the money moved. MOIC tells you how much money actually moved. Both numbers are required to judge a track record, and both can be gamed in isolation — which is why a serious diligence process always looks at them together, and why our LBO calculator reports both side by side.

The base formula is arithmetic: add up everything the investment has returned so far, add the current mark on anything still held, and divide by the total amount invested.

Invested capital includes every dollar the fund or investor has deployed — follow-on capital, bolt-on acquisition equity, recapitalisation contributions — not just the original check. Realized proceeds are actual distributions received (dividends, recapitalisations, partial exits, full exits). Unrealized value is the current fair value of any position still held, which for private companies means the latest GP-reported mark and for public positions means the market price.

On a fund-level basis the same numbers are broken out into three LP-oriented ratios. DPI (Distributions to Paid-In) equals realised proceeds over invested capital — the cash-in-pocket number. RVPI (Residual Value to Paid-In) equals unrealised value over invested capital — what is still at risk. TVPI (Total Value to Paid-In) is DPI plus RVPI, which is arithmetically identical to gross MOIC. The calculator above shows all three because fund marketing decks use this vocabulary even when the deal-level conversation uses MOIC.

MOIC is the right metric when you need to communicate absolute dollar outcomes — track records, fundraising decks, LP allocation meetings, carried-interest calculations. It is the wrong metric when you need to compare investments with different hold periods, because it treats a three-year double and a ten-year double as equivalent. For that you need IRR, and for a complete picture you need both.

MOIC also breaks down when the cash flow pattern is complex. Deals with multiple capital calls, partial distributions, recapitalisations, and follow-on rounds require a proper XIRR on the full cash flow stream to estimate the return rate accurately. The implied-IRR output on this calculator assumes a single invest-and-exit shape, which is a reasonable approximation for most buyout deals but materially wrong for venture funds with heavy late-hold markups. For a full discounted-cash-flow valuation that handles intermediate cash flows properly, use the DCF calculator.

The "net" toggle on this calculator applies management fees and carried interest to the gross result. Management fees are charged annually on invested capital — typically 1.5% to 2.0% in middle-market PE, stepping down after the investment period ends. Carried interest is the GP's share of profits above invested capital, standard at 20% with either no preferred return or an 8% hurdle. This calculator uses a simple no-hurdle model; the dedicated waterfall calculator models preferred return and GP catch-up in full.

As a rule of thumb, the standard 2-and-20 fee drag reduces a 2.5x gross MOIC to roughly a 2.1x–2.2x net MOIC over a five-year hold, and reduces a 20% gross IRR to roughly a 15%–16% net IRR. LPs care about net; GPs track gross and net side by side. For full fund-economics modelling including hurdle rate, GP catch-up, and carried interest on a per-deal basis, see the fund fee calculator and the waterfall distribution calculator.