Best growth equity firm?

Looking for opinions of those already working within the industry (already have a sense of what other college age students think and think there's a difference of opinion between those looking to enter the industry and those already in it). For all you growth (and venture) investors, what is the best growth equity firm currently? Does your answer change if question isn't the best, but most prestigious? 1 runner-up allowed

27 Comments
 

unsure why this is receiving MS; Bond is truly one of the best pure growth shops. although KP’s performance over the past decade really isn’t great

 

You aren’t going to get a good answer because there isn’t an answer. “Growth” is an ill defined asset class.

What BOND and IVP do is different than what ICONIQ does which is different than what TA does which is different than what GA does which is different than what Lead Edge does which is… you get the point.

Some comparisons are better than others, but a statement like “IVP is better than TA” is meaningless. It’s very rare you get two truly comparable shops, and at that point if they’re truly comparable it comes down to individual preference and what style / structure works better for you.

 

GA and Insight are the two largest, most prominent players. They've raised the largest funds, written the largest checks, attracted the most "prestigious" candidates, and had just about the best returns in the recent decade. That's pretty objective.

 
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Pure growth would probably be GA, Insight, TA, Summit (in no order, as mentioned before, every fund has a different strategy and on top of that, the junior experience can be vastly different even within the same peerset). 

Of the MFs which have started GE arms, I believe TPG Growth was the first one and has been around for a little over a decade, could be wrong on this but think this is right. BX came next and just raised a 1B+ fund a while back. Both these funds are in a unique position where they also make borderline control investments and not always true minority growth investments like TA or Summit for example. Thoma poached a few top performers from GA 7 months ago to form their first GE practice, not sure how funding works (thinking they might be leveraging funds from other TB funds until they can raise their own). The fund wasn't around when I was recruiting but dang, sure does look appealing. They signed a lease to a brand new building which hasn't even finished construction yet in Brickell (DT Miami) and it's supposed to be a great time. Plus, no state income taxes :) 

 

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