Top Growth Equity Investors
Hi all - looking to learn more about the growth space, any knowledge sharing would be appreciated.
For those in growth equity, what firms have the best reputation?
I see GA and Insight mentioned a lot on the forum, how do they compare to Dragoneer, Iconiq capital, Capital G?
Just looking to learn more about the landscape of firms - so any guidance is appreciated.
I'm not aware of WP's growth fund. I do know their main fund is called growth and actually does a ton of small / growthy deals. You will in fact not typically see WP in processes for the large 2bn+ EV assets. They're a growth investor basically out of their main fund.
Anyway, on the rest (KKR, BX), I think it is a mistake to view these platforms (except TPG who has a great rep/history) as equivalent to the top historical growth shops. Look at who BX hired to run growth, guy from GA. My view is you'll have better experience at GA, TA, Summit, TCV, Insight not to mention these funds are larger than "megafund" growth funds. Look at insight raising 9.5bn, summit 5bn, TA 9 I think vs KKR's what 2? So this view that the top growth investors aren't as stable IMO is wrong because they've all raised 9-10 funds in their ~30-40 year investing history's.
I think BX has done some pretty major hiring so tough to say what the experience is like, potentially quite good. But I think my main point is the traditional growth investors are still the top players IMO.
because people here like to jerk off to mega funds and can't fathom that other more specialized funds are better in some cases?
I haven't looked at them in a while but historically - in my mind - they took a bit the softbank role as coming in late at the higher priced rounds when the really large tickets were raised (instead of IPOs often). I was under the impression they tried to get as much prim and second in these rounds and the money / deal destination was almost exclusively Asia. I might be wrong on all of that though.
A lot of other growth funds have different pockets but traditionally they come in earlier. For me an insight / TCV/ GA picks business models and has deep market understanding which is tied together with a suitable deal package whilst a dragoneer / softbank and the likes are financing houses around momentum deals. I would be surprised if the business model analysis is their USP, I think their access to deals (and capital) is.
IMO an analysis to assess whether a GE shop is more of a momentum player is to check whether you see them do deals by themselves or they always come in with many other funds in "instead of IPO" rounds. In nowadays markets, the tickets in the late rounds are so big, no fund can do it themselves, hence even shops that cant pick winners are needed. I actually think what they build is super impressive...