Top Venture Capitals that hire juniors?
Pretty self-explanatory question. What are the top 10-20 VC firms that hire pre-MBA analysts/associates/junior investors?
Pretty self-explanatory question. What are the top 10-20 VC firms that hire pre-MBA analysts/associates/junior investors?
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"Top" (as in large AUM, historically reputable, and prominent brand-name that's beneficial for business school applications) funds that hire numerous investment professionals without an MBA:
That is for non-seed investing (meaning funds that do more Series A, B, and onward rounds than seed rounds). There are obviously a lot more, but these names listed are the big ones that hire more than a couple juniors at once.
There is a very poor overlap between how jobs in early stage venture (especially seed) are offered and how banking analysts manage their recruiting process.
Venture hires at smaller or early-stage shops are not made in a process-driven way. I've written more than once about this in the past, for the sake of time I won't repeat myself again.
Broadly speaking, nearly all firms hire at the pre-MBA level. There are some good responses here, but I think that an important distinction needs to be made with regard to what different firms might be looking for in candidates depending on their specific strategy.
First, VC is a broad bucket encompassing seed investing, traditional early stage investing, and growth equity investing. Firms like IVP, General Atlantic, and Insight will seek far different candidates than firms like Andreessen, Kleiner, or seed funds.
Growth investors like IVP, General Atlantic, TCV, and others invest in companies that are proven (i.e. meaningful revenue, often $25-100m+) and will only be taking market/execution risk. As such, these companies can be underwritten and follow a more traditional sourcing approach. So, junior analysts, particularly those with a tech banking background, will be attractive to these firms.
For early stage or seed firms, companies are often pre-revenue or early revenue. As such, winning/sourcing deals requires a thematic approach and an ability to interface with technical founders. So, analysts at these firms will typically be more technical and have a strong grasp of technical trends. The ability to model, other than market sizing, is not really necessary. So, candidates with CS backgrounds, data scientists, and product managers make the most attractive candidates.
I'd add that for multistage VCs that will invest in seed through growth (ex. Andreessen, Lightspeed, Kleiner, etc.) both technical and more financially oriented analysts may be sought out. Within these firms, there will be partners that focus on either later stage investments or early stage investments, and their specific deal teams will often follow this focus.
Hope this is helpful. For reference, I've worked on the LP side and have specialized in VC funds in the past.