Looking for information - have seen a lot of hot press on this website recently about Insight, similar to PWP. I know they're a good shop, good culture, sourcing heavy (which can be a really good thing, depending on what you're looking for).
Do people in the industry really respect the Insight name that much to take it over top banking groups / other GE offers?
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I work at a growth fund (not Insight) and would easily prioritize candidates from there (or any other Tier 1 investor) over anybody out of banking. Why wouldn't I hire someone who already knows exactly how to do the job?
I'm not so married to the brand that I would automatically choose an Insight person over a GA, Summit, etc. person regardless of personality, but great training and proving ground for a career in technology growth.
is there a difference between their onsite diligence team and their investment team?
Yes. The investment team sources and executes investments. The Onsite team does operational DD and post-close portfolio work. Think of it as the difference between banking and consulting. You can probably go from one to the other but would need to play catch-up on the expertise you don't have.
Know people on both sides. From what I can gather (at least for the junior roles), onsite is where the finance and modeling happens and investment analysts do a ton of sourcing. So depends what you prefer.
They're a bit of a unicorn buyside shop - decent hours / WLB, top tier pay, great culture, and amazing exit opportunities. Basically all the good things about a LMM fund with MF comp and brand name.
What are the hours and comp like?
What I found puzzling is that they claim to be amongst the top shops for the software industry, but focus a lot on sourcing. I would expect they should be busy qualifying a ton of founders pounding on their door, rather than go cold calling. But at any event, they are $100B and change and that speaks a lot for their ability to deliver.
They're among the top shops BECAUSE they focus a lot on sourcing. The best companies to invest in are the ones that aren't looking for / don't need investment... chasing those guys down to get them to work with you on a proprietary basis >>> looking at the same deals everybody else looks at
Yeah, the people on this site have downplayed the importance and skill of sourcing. The soft skills you learn are more applicable to what you do in senior investment roles in the private market. As a senior, you're not in the weeds of a model you're finding and considering investments. Also, ESPECIALLY at the growth stage, these founders do not need VCs and GEs more than the VCs and GEs need the founders. Every VC and GE firm is largely the same, they deploy capital. The founder is searching for the right partner. What separates Insight and GA isn't name brand. It's the senior professionals that have the expertise to provide advice and connections to help the founder grow their business. Think about it, if TA is reaching out to you as a founder, that likely means you have a good product that has some credibility and lots of promise. If you have a good product every firm with dry powder will be knocking on your door. You don't want to dilute your equity for a partner that doesn't add any value besides money. Think about shark tank, if you have an offer from Mark Cuban and Lori, but you have a B2B product vs a D2C or retail product, Lori isn't the best partner as she is better in D2C and retail, but Mark is better at B2B. Just like Damon is better for fashion and Mr. Wonderful is better for food and licensing. It's more about picking the right partner and these earlier stage firms have to pitch themselves.
I'm curious as well since this forum puts them on a pedestal versus other well-recognized growth players. Putting aside big-ass fund size, I don't really know what's different about the junior/mid-level experience (focus on sourcing, good deal-flow, good returns, flexible buyout vs. growth rounds), unless it's really about the culture and WLB/pay differential?
If I was going purely off WSO (obviously I wouldn't) I would always take Insight over any of the other well-recognized growth guy, but I'm not sure about the specifics of why that is, unless it's just classic WSO bs.
Pay is very high compared to peers. Summit for example pays close to $100k less as an ASO1.
More of a tech culture compared to peers. WFH very flexible and you can take multiple weeks off if you want. Nicer office with tech perks / benefits. More autonomy as a junior than other funds (this can be a curse though if you aren't proactive / ready to source).
Autonomy also translates to juniors having real ownership over the relationships and deals they source vs. handing if off to the VP/principal the moment there's any real traction.
Flexibility between growth, buyout, and venture.
More willing to invest in cool / niche spaces like gaming, blockchain, esports, etc.
Can't comment on returns but would assume have been good given $20bn latest fund size.
Yeah this forum really loves Insight for some reason. Not sure why. Props to their marketing team.
Chose Insight over other options for FT, so in short I would answer your question “yes.” If you’re deciding between offers feel free to PM, but I can honestly say that most of the positive commentary on WSO is surprisingly accurate—wouldn’t say it’s “overhyped.” In fact pre-2018 there was very little info about the firm on this site.
can you go unanon? can't pm
Hey can you pls send me a DM?
Recently signed, do you mind PMing?
Hi, could you possibly PM me? Hoping to learn more about FT Recruiting options for growth. Thanks!
Just so you know, the process and focus on sourcing for Insight and Summit is good for the LPs and partners.
It's a horrible experience for most young kids, which is all of WSO.com.
Curious why you say sourcing is a horrible experience for folks early in their career?
Because he's a modeling monkey that spends 100 hours every week making 20 page decks arguing whether the IRR on the latest mature enterprise SaaS company for plumbing logistics will come out to be 14% or 14.25%, and has convinced himself that his job of pure financial engineering is more fulfilling than one that requires social awareness
Curious why everyone here is so pro sourcing now … it’s a tough gig. Spent a year as a GE analyst doing all sourcing and ending up lateraling to IB.
Don’t know about insight, but it can be brutal. You’re cold calling hundreds of companies a year that don’t want to talk to you. The vast majority of the time you get ignored. If they do want to talk chances are the company sucks.
Every interesting company gets immediately scooped by someone senior, and all the actual good deal flow (ie from bankers or a company that we’d been following for a while) goes straight to the senior team.
Sometimes sourcing can be a lot more interesting (ie analyzing an industry trend, developing a thesis, and then really targeting a few companies) but if you’re just looking at pitchbook screens and emailing CEOs it’s not going to be very fun
Agree with this. A lot of the pro sourcing comments from folks who've never cold emailed or cold called before feels like virtue signaling.
Sounds like the "good" parts of sourcing are really sort of a VP-level responsibility? I assume that at that level, you're doing more thesis development, execution, and relationship, with junior folks pick up the phone, so that as a VP you end up talking to at least promising prospects (and not hundreds / yr). Is that accurate? From someone coming from buyout, it seems a lot more attractive than a traditional buyout VP, who is still heavily a deal execution monkey.
Not OP here, but to the people above saying they have top tier comp, can you put a rough number to that? Anecdotally I heard someone who was interviewing there say they weren't sure if it was worth leaving for because the ASO1 comp they were quoted was around the same as the top bucket AN1 pay at our MM IB, so I assumed they meant ~180-200
AN1 comp at Insight is higher than that lmao
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