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Definitely a possible track, but (unfortunately) very unlikely unless you have some sort of buy side experience pre-banking or have a good connection with seniors at a shop. The formalized PE recruiting process is heavily geared towards IB analysts and don't tap the associate pool often. However, more niche shops or family offices may be an option
People do it, but its tough a not a traditional path. Once you're post-MBA banking the traditional recruiting for PE ends.
I'm sure after a year or two you could be competitive for some smaller funds, but its a crapshoot overall.
We got a bunch of applications from people who either went A2A or did banking post MBA for a few years and wanted to come in as an associate at our fund and we pretty much rejected all of them. The other tough thing is, even though we're not really a 2 and out fund, we like to reserve the right to do that if an Associate is bad, so its tricky when someone takes a big pay cut to join as an Associate (which they would have to unless they had prior PE experience) and then cut them after 2 years.
Most banking associates I know who exited went corporate, not into PE.
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