MF Tech PE 2026
Simple, see title - looking for any updated views on culture, associate experience, and compensation at the usual suspects (Silver Lake, H&F, TB, Vista, Hg, FP, and any others I missed)
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Bump (ignore title) - actively recruiting with the major software players’ large cap funds. Appreciate any insights on those.
My quick $0.02 on the firms listed:
Broadly agree with the tiering, though I'd caveat that MF PE probably isn't generating much alpha in the medium term (there is some near-term potential for Alpha as the generalist MF PE names are too scared of software right now, so less competition than steady-state) regardless of which shop you pick. Too many firms chasing too small an investable universe. H&F is wildly overrated by associates and below. Strict 2-and-out with no realistic promote path, and lateraling to senior associate seats at comparable funds is significantly harder than associate recruiting. If you have the option, much better to be at a shop where you at least have a shot at promotion.
Would also push Vista out of the top tech MF seats. It's a one-man show with no checks after they kicked out their other co-founder. Smith is clearly a very sharp guy who is charismatic, but their post-2020 fund returns are likely among the worst in the peer group, and they refuse to exit anything. If they'd exited some of their better assets like Cloud Software Group, they could've returned capital at a profit, but they keep sitting on them. Weird shift, Vista historically had fairly short hold periods. TB has a similar hold-too-long problem recently, but not historically, on their mediocre investments, but at least they've generated DPI on the good ones.
OP here and you seem to have worked / work in the space - from a recruiting standpoint, assuming I am able to land any interviews, it sounds like the best ones to prioritize would be TB, Hg, and FP? I’m looking for a good associate experience, promotion visibility to Senior Associate, VP (and beyond, to the extent I’m performing well and the fund is).
Seems like Silver Lake and H&F don’t offer much promotion visibility, and not hearing great things about Vista (I created this new thread to have a clean sheet away from the multitude of Vista slander on other threads, but seems it’s made its way here as well, LOL.)
Versus Thoma, Hg, and FP seem to do the job on what I’m solving for here (potential long-term PE seat with good reps, promotion vis, and exit opps - I guess a “catch-all” now that I spell it out)
Agreed with replies here - don’t go to Vista (versus Hg, Thoma, Francisco, Silver Lake, and a few other funds)
Roommate worked there and [voluntary] attrition is insane - something definitely is “broken”
Bump. What about other mf tech groups? Permira, Advent Tech, KKR, TPG?
KKR TMT well documented sweatshop that buys garbage software assets under the guise of “value investing”. Strategy has gone nowhere but down and the guy who spearheaded the whole thing was recently axed.
Permira Tech also kind of a shitshow. Think they’ve closed up the growth fund and not really sure what their plans are there.
Advent Tech is in a weird place. Fund 1 was deployed into peak 2021 market and is quite bad (only standout is Wiz exit). Fund 2 I’ve heard is doing better but time will tell. Good culture fwiw but office is in Palo Alto
Apax and EQT?
Seriously appreciate the insight here. This is very helpful.
Curious if you have any views on Advent beyond the tech platform (Boston/NYC)? Culture, promotion visibility, comp etc.
The firm is Boston HQ'ed and every team has a presence there EXCEPT for tech, so in a lot of ways Advent Tech and the rest of Advent are quite distinct. In North America, best team by far based on deal track record is their business and financial services team (e.g. Nuvei take private, NIQ carevout and IPO), let alone the stuff they are rumored to be doing (paypal??). Then Consumer (Olaplex, Sauer, Salt & Stone) and Industrials (Maxar take private) probably equal. Worst is probably healthcare (lots of dogs in the portfolio). In Europe it's a bit different (Industrials team far and away the best). Culture is the best thing it has going for it (grindy like all other MFPE but great people) - helpful to offset the very low odds of getting promoted to VP (essentially 2-3 associates out of every class of 15-20).
Source: used to work there
following
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Thoughts on GA?
Going into software PE right now = masochist-maxxing
Edit: MS from someone that is dumb enough to believe the marks. Comment if you disagree… this will be an easy one.
What industries are more defensible, with tailwinds and somewhat interesting?
had to quote to reply — must be a bug
1) more defensible: any industry big enough to be a “vertical” at a $500m PE fund. Tech is below consumer now IMO… would rather take brand risk than buy a SaaS biz with 10k+ ACV that no longer has a moat. Too much disruption risk.
2) tailwinds: two types of tailwinds… 1) industry growth and 2) investor return tailwinds. #1 is a nice to have. #2 decides the tone of you life for 90+ hours a week and your carry.
Tech investor return tailwinds are extremely barbelled right now. Traditional MF/UMM tech hasn’t and isn’t going to capture a frontier labs (right hand side).
So tech is still proliferating (#1) but returns for tech PE (#2) are in the gutter with no light at end of tunnel right now.
Lipstick on a pig used to be a joke for making CIMs in banking… it’s now what you do when you have a tech portco… and holy shit your partners never stop thinking of new shades of lipstick to try out. Oh and the people you are trying to sell to are professional lipstick removers… or retail but that can only last so long.
3) on being somewhat interesting: good Q but depends on the person. For me, the most interesting thing is when a biz actually makes money. Sounds simple but it’s complicated and requires a lot more than smoothing retention calcs in a projected P&L.
On a trip right now with a guy rocking a Richard Mille he got from selling a ‘boring’ residential leisure supply biz. Redacted supplies haven’t come up a single time.
Odds of finding a biz under my definition (and his definition) of interesting are much higher outside the UMM/MF buy-out tech strikezone
PE is cyclical. There's always been and will always be money to be made in software, just like healthcare, industrials, services, or any other sector. Public markets aren't perfect either, or do you believe the software recovery since the March lows is perfectly rational? Can't have it both ways: if the March lows were justified because of AI disruption, then the current software rebound makes no sense, because AI has only progressed since. Software has outperformed other sectors dramatically and is now going through a correction. The early-2020s and vintages will mostly be duds, but that has zero bearing on future funds, especially because good funds in software (Hg, Veritas, TB, etc.) have all raised new funds well past the release of ChatGPT and COVID boom.
The arrogance about what the future holds on this forum just reads as cope from people at bad PE funds. Every argument against software PE applies to all of PE right now, AI disruption cuts across basically every sector. Not saying you should or shouldn't go into software PE. Go into what you actually find interesting. But your take reeks of psuedo confident intellectual arrogance.
You can call it a recovery if you want but the reality is IGV is still in the red YTD and last time I checked… you get paid after 8% IRR net of fees.
Didn’t I end my post with there is a higher prob of making money outside of UMM/MF tech? Didn’t I also say tech returns are extremely barbelled? That =/= to nobody can make money in software…
Multiple things can be true… everything cycles and all cycles are not uniform. IMO this is a particularly bad cycle for tech PE because we haven’t seen innovation like this in a long time.
Generally don’t agree with reducing this to AI impacts all of PE. Yep, I think it impacts everyone.
Personally I don’t find too much comfort in the fact some of the software names have continued to raise large funds post ChatGPT.
AI as a threat to software wasn’t a ubiquitous fear until SaaSpocalypse which is more a late 2025 / early 2026 phenomenon before it was really internalized in people’s minds. A number of the software sponsors who did raise well already had substantial commit ahead of that fear coming to the forefront.
Further even if you did fully raise post SaaSpocalypse you are in many ways raising on the back of the pre-COVID vintages successes / DPI which will look much better than anything raised around COVID or after. So it not really inconceivable that some folks continued to raise well on the back of historic success and the next fund will be comparatively smaller given the performance / DPI of the covid and beyond vintages start to be the main focus in fundraising.
While the 2026 vintages maybe have opportunity to generate strong performance / carry again they’ll be too early to impact the next fundraise and regardless if they perform your life will be a nightmare if the next fund is a down raise.
Long-term I agree with you but nonetheless the above is my current perspective living in the thick of it!
Stupid to go into software PE if you're planning to use it to get a brand name on resume/build a tech-specific resume? Not looking to be in PE long-term?
Why the ms? That was supposed to be a question: Is it stupid to go into software PE if your ultimate goal is to work in a non-investing role within technology?
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