It stands for overall internal rate of return; in relation to private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) funds, it is the discount rate that makes the net present value of all the cash flows available from the inception to the end of the investment, equal to zero. In this type of internal rate of return (IRR), there is no terminal appraised value or residual value (as opposed to interim IRR).

This measure of IRR takes into consideration all the cash flows, realized or anticipated, generated over the investment’s entire life.

The overall IRR is also known as the lifetime IRR.