If there is good news to be had in private equity these days, it is that limited partners seem to want to put new money to work.

Several recent studies have pointed in this direction, including one from Preqin, which found that a large number of endowments, public pensions, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and foundations want to invest in the coming year.

The top area of interest is buyouts. Second on the list is venture capital. Almost half of potential investors name venture as an asset class they will consider, Preqin says in a report issued this month.

This is welcome news to the industry. That’s because there is no shortage of funds out looking for cash. Preqin, in its study, finds 372 venture capital funds on the road, or nearly a fifth of all private equity funds on the fundraising trail. Together they seek $47.2 billion in commitments.

Many GPs will argue that consistency is their forte. But only some can truly make that claim, the study finds. Preqin assembled a list of the most consistent performers in venture based on IRR, fund year, strategy and geography. Only active managers that have three or more funds with a similar strategy are included and still formative 2010, 2011 and 2012 funds are not included.

Tied at the top of the list are Benchmark Capital, GGV Capital, Pittsford Ventures Management and Sequoia Capital, with the strongest record of top quartile funds. The list from the report is reprinted below.

(Editors note: The average quartile rank in the table is determined by scoring each fund. A top quartile fund gets a “1” and a second quartile fund gets a “2,” etc. The ranking is an average. Photo above courtesy of Shutterstock.)