Anyone have info on Insight Partners?

It's basically a sourcing sweatshop. Not saying thats a bad thing, but I know a few former analysts that all exited from there to top notch growth equity / VC firms, not sure how they do for more traditional PE exits though.

The three people I know from there all went Insight (2 years) -> other VC/growth equity (2 years) -> top Bschool, so definitely seems like a respected firm, but not sure how PE exits would compare to top IB jobs.

On culture (Note: don't know anyone still there, so info is a little bit dated) it seems relatively collegial among junior folks, with lots of informal work events, and a relatively social environment. Sourcing roles tend to favor people with a warm and outgoing personality, so you see that a lot among their people.

That said I understand that the culture among senior folks is extremely aggressive and competitive. I heard reports that if you had a company on your CRM dashboard, didn't get them on the phone, and they raised a round in Insight's box... you were in big trouble. Known for having quotas for calls made per week among interns / analysts, which is a good accountability metric but does mean it's tougher to BS if you aren't performing.

There's plenty of room to climb the ranks in the org, but people who do exit tend to do so laterally / downmarket to VC with fewer folks going to buyout shops (though that may change as Insight starts to do more big deals). They are generally seen as among the top players (if not #1) in their segment, so the caliber of firms / companies moved to is also high.

I went through their process. I applied without networking. Am a non diversity and non-target but my school is a target for this firm. Interviews were very laid back and focused on what I knew about the tech and software space and what differentiates a firm that makes it grow. Did not accept offer as I got a very weird vibe from the people who interviewed me.

Is this a good company to work for? Will you actually learn or is it just glorified cold calling? any insights would be great

In my opinion its one of the best growth investors out there in tech. People on this site make sourcing out to be something negative which I don't understand. I much rather meet companies and try to find deals then to model out IMs i.e. look at things that the entire industry is looking at esp. if we talk about winners of tomorrow and fundamental shifts in industries. If you want to invest in companies in the growth stage and not just do momentum deals, then you need to know all companies in certain fields as well as deals out there. In my (limited) interactions with Insight, they always appeared as a high conviction and aggressive investors but on the back of very deep sector knowledge. I have seen them try to preempt a couple of times for example in quite aggressive fashion. The enterprise software people I interacted with are top notch esp. in infrastructure. I don't know about their later stage funds and business outside the enterprise software field. The more junior people (mostly senior assoc / VP) I interacted with have also always been quite impressive and stood out compared to some other funds when it comes to knowing sectors and the companies within e.g. although they are not based in Europe I have seen them many times being more precise in tracking companies and their KPIs in Europe than their European counterparts. This is exactly what you will be doing as an analyst/ associate. Someone will have a view what field is interesting and what shift is taking place to create the winners of tomorrow and you will map out all companies in this space and try to meet them to track the KPIs (whatever is relevant in this market / thesis) and try to find / create deals (ideally with the best company in the space). This obviously often translates into a #s game but that's just normal. As long as you call in sector because someone has a view vs. just finding companies needing a ticket and then learning about the space, you should be ok. Compared to some other tech investors, I have found Insight and some of their peers to be more market trend first and #s second oriented vs. some of the growth investors that are moving down from the pure LBO world and go #s first (which makes sense given they mostly just do SaaS and don't need real shift in the thesis). This also means sometimes the cheque is larger than one would expect or the company younger or the valuation higher (whatever the specifics of the sectors and your thesis are) etc. i.e. the tech thesis comes first and structure later. This point is purely my perception based on a very limited number of datapoints. Their office view is a perk, too. Cant speak on hours but I imagine its best comparable to Summit, TA, Summeru, TCV and all the other tech growth guys.

how good is the rep of insight? will it open doors??

i wonder how 'shortly' we will hear back