Would a VC internship be helpful for IB?
I got an opportunity to work in a small seed VC firm. My career goal is to become an IB analyst after I have graduated from my master course. Here is the description: It is a seed capital fund that combines its investments with in-house services to help entrepreneurs execute their goals faster. They normally participate in existing rounds though also provide the first investment in extraordinary cases. Your responsability would be to provide certain services to the portfolio teams in financial modeling, market analysis, and preparation of key documents regarding their financing rounds and contracts with clients. You will have proper guidance in these particular activities.
Is this internship helpful for my goal?
In regards to most VC firms, training is very informal. In terms of educational purposes, I don't think it will add much to your skillset. However, anything in high finance is related to your goal, as it is still experience. To be honest though, try to get a boutique PE experience if acquiring companies is something you're interested in. It is pretty much late-stage VC for mature companies where you buy the firm straight out and take control of it. This is opposed to VC where you have just a piece of the pie and the original guy is still running it. At a PE firm, the work is not much different from banking because you still spend a lot of time valuing companies, looking at financial statements, and conducting due diligence.
In most VC firms though, a lot of the work is just sourcing (isolating companies, cold-calling; asking other people what their opinions are) and knowing the space really well. Pretty qualitative/relation-driven stuff (relation-based because knowing certain people can hook you up with meetings/the best ideas). Only pretty late-stage VC firms have modelling just because modelling during seed-stage/early-stage when it's Y0 with no cash flow or working prototype is pretty tough to do. So much volatility that it's just generally not done because it doesn't add that much value. I'm surprised they mentioned financial modelling as an actual responsibility because I'm pretty confidant you're going to be doing very little of it.
I think it really depends on the venture capital firm. If the firm is well-established in a particular space, I think the experience could definitely be helpful especially if you are able to work with the investment team and learn more about their investment thesis. If you know things to look for at an earlier stage companies, relaying that to bigger companies at an investment bank/private equity shop is doable.
How is a VC internship viewed in IB recruiting? (Originally Posted: 05/21/2011)
Hey guys, did a search and couldn't come up with any good concrete answers so I wanted to post the question:
How is a VC internship viewed in IB recruiting?
didn't you ask this question like atleast 10 times here..
didn't you ask this question like atleast 10 times here..
Actually no. I did ask a variant of this question, but didn't get a straight answer, so I was hoping if I asked it more directly I might....
Would vc experience help when going for ib internship? (Originally Posted: 05/25/2009)
Hello everyone,
I am currently doing an internship at a vc fund and would like to know if it will help me get into i-banking sa interviews next summer. Could anyone give advice?
I have a 3.6gpa from a non-target school, double majoring in finance and econ. I have also been a president of my fraternity and have plenty of "leadership experience".
Would appreciate any advice. Thank you.
of course it would. i m guessing you're a sophomore..so yeah the experience def looks good. just keep getting good grades, make the most out of your internship and network your ass off. you should be fine.
It would help, but why wouldn't you just go back to the VC next summer ? how big is it ? People usually try to go from banking to VC, not the other way around
SA VC------->BB IBD (Originally Posted: 05/11/2011)
So I am in a final round with a smallish VC in NYC that focuses on early startups for a Summer analyst position. It will have some modeling.
I am going to grad school next year and still have next summer for an internship before full-time in which I am hoping to get a BB IBD summer associate position.
I am wondering how well this would translate:
VC SA (summer btw grad and undergrad)----->BB Sum Assc IBD----->BB FT IBD Assc
Could this work. What would my other options be in terms of career path with a VC internship? VC right after grad school?
good luck. you are a senior right now in college. i sure wish that i thought of that. doing two years in grad school for a master's in a nonbusiness field and then reentering as an associate!!
versus
either doing 3 years in ib or doing some years of work and getting an mba
awesome shortcut bro!!!!
Wasn't really planned, just kind of fell into it. I hope it will work out though...
The shit of it is I am turning down a FT BB S&T job that I love to go to grad school (it is a good school).
You likely won't be considered for an associate position with that little work experience.
Take the BB S&T job.
sorry if you didn't catch the sarcasm. if this was a very top mba or maybe a very top mfin, you might be able to get away with this and land an associate position if you had god's resume. so it's possible, but i think it will be extremely tough in your case. most mfin candidates are considered for analyst jobs unless they have prior exp.
Ya I am fine with being considered for an analyst position after grad school.
I am more concerned at the moment with the degree and schools effect on my resume throughout the length of my career rather than right off the bat. i'm also fortunate to have a good guaranteed fall back job.
Some of my goals in finance involving sourcing start-ups for VC in a particular field, and my master's degree will really help with that endeavor.
Just want to point out for the sake of discussion- I have posted my situation many times on this site (when I was deciding whether or not to take the grad school or BB S&T) and I have gotten some mixed, but almost ALWAYS "take the job" responses.
What is interesting is that when i talk to high-ups in the industry at BB's in person, they almost always tell me to go to school.
This contradiction is very interesting to me as I am not sure what to think. Any thoughts on that?
The reason that you are getting different feedback on this site than what you get from live discussions with actual bankers is that a high percentage of the users on here are still in college and looking for jobs. Many would be willing to take any FO opportunity in finance available, which may or may not be the right decision for you.
Additionally, the people you meet in person have a much better idea of who you are and your motivations for pursuing a specific path/likelihood of success on that path. Readers of a random internet post have very little context to go on. Generally, the right move is to take what appears to be a great job opportunity when it is in front of you (particularly in a down economy), but without context people can only generalize.
Either way, if you have contacts in the industry who know you and are willing to offer you advice, stick with what they are telling you.
Wow, thanks techbanking, that was very insightful. I appreciate those thoughts.
Btw the BB desk I had a job on is figuring out if they can make me an intern. They supported me going to grad school (Oxford) and said theyd be "very interested" in hiring me after. Hopefully I can intern with them in the mean time and all will be well. If not, we'll see....
Life is always risk/reward.
Intern at VC ----> IB .... wtf? (Originally Posted: 08/15/2012)
So my fund right now has an undergrad summer intern currently heading into his senior year. We usually don't but one of the MD's did it as a favor. He's ok so I don't really care where he goes. He was talking with me about potnential full time positions out of college the other week and I encouraged him to try to get into the buy side if possible.
Well this morning he told me he has decided he only wants to try and break into IB. I was a little surprised - I've talked with him about the better hours, usually nicer team atmosphere, more interesting work, ect. I feel VC/PE has.
Does anyone else feel like this is weird? The kid has a full summer surrounded by VC's, interacting with banks, startups, consulting and PE shops and then decides he wants to only try and get an analyst position at BB IB.
Buy-side is slower, especially in the lower middle market.
starting out on the sell side has it advantages too - you build a strong network by joining an analyst program. Later on, when you need to start sourcing deals, sell side contacts are a must. Obviously banks give their best deals to their best clients, but being buddies with the MD since he was an IB analyst can be extremely valuable
This is not true. Banks "give" their best deals to whoever is willing to pay the most, thus generating more fees. Knowing the banker well might give you some level of additional insight into the deal, but ultimately banks only care about the size of their fee and time to and certainty of closing. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but it's not like a potential buyer/investor gets left off the list because they aren't buddies with a banker.
Even some funds with good AUM are not best for analysts out of college. You're looking for growth opportunities out of college where you can get solid platform, not quality of life. There are really only a handful of good VCs... and a lot of mediocre-to-crappy ones. The good PE/VC require sell-side experience (or alternatively startup experience), whereas only really the mediocre-to-crappy firms hire straight out of undergrad. Just because you're on the "buy-side" does not make you the holy grail...
Now if you're Kleiner Perkins and this kid would rather work in IBD at UBS, then I think he's dumb. But taking a top BB over a lot of buy-side gigs is more than reasonable.
Not that surprising, the intern at our fund also indicated he's interested in IB (although he's looking for an internship, not FT yet...)
PE i understand that you would go on as an analyst, definitely not VC unless you know for sure what you want to do. The guy probably just wants the sellside exp in case he wants to go somewhere else, no harm in it.
What are the backgrounds of the junior team members at your fund?
Would your fund hire him on full-time? If not, maybe he thinks that since your fund doesn't hire straight from undergrad that most other funds won't as well (generally the case).
what's the problem here
BB IBD prestige > Small shop VC prestige.
The training provided by investment banks is unrivalled though. The training process is far more formal and disciplined, not to mention it's all in a corporate environment (generally speaking).
I think one of the worst things a fresh grad can do is make the decision based on money and hours. At this point grads should just focus on busting their ass, build a strong foundation and then venture out (if you'll pardon the pun).
There's also the topic of getting a world-renowned prestigious name nailed on their CV.
Are you in IB? Probably not, because if you are you would know that training is a joke...
Better to start in a preftigious IBD group than in a middle market / other unpreftigious PE/VC/HF
Sorry - I wrote this rather rushed at work and 15 mins after the intern told me. Great points - I completely see what you guys are saying on the many pros of BB IB.
What got to me more was that he simply was not interested in working on the buy side at all. He made the statement more like "I've deciding I only want to do IB" with a undertone of "Buy side isn't for me". Having worked some in Banking myself (I didn't do a full 2 years) I found it funny to hear this tone from a kid who has never stepped into a investment bank before.
Also, to put more in context of my fund, while we are not a top 5 or so firm, are a very strong fund, and considered top tier in our industry focus. Think 400M-500M AUM and equity raises up to $15M. The usual analyst has a banking, PE or consulting background.
Thanks for the input guys. Defiantly agree that both sell side & buy side have different pros/cons for analyst positions.
I actually worked at a VC before going into IB (internship opportunities FYI). I was always focused on breaking into IB and saw the VC help better prepare me to make that transition. There are many pros and cons that be given for VC and IB, but to each his own. Good luck to your intern!!!
Like Dosk17's post on here, recruiters usually tell you not to do VC pre-mba if you ever want to do other buyside opps like private equity or a hedge fund. It'd be just very hard if not impossible to move to these industries since sourcing doesn't exactly translate into the modeling you find in PE/HF.
In that case, I would say that an IBD stint is much more worthwhile out of ugrad.
A lot of pre-MBA VC positions don't involve sourcing and do involve financial modeling (albeit not at the same level of a PE/IB firm)
I chose to do pre-mba VC instead of taking an IB offer I had. Why did I choose that? I got advice from 5-10 MD's and VP's of multi-billion dollar PE shops who all told me to take the VC offer over IB because (abridged) you can't replace buy-side deal experience and anyone can learn modeling. I think it's pretty obvious IB analysts have great exit opportunities, however to say VC analysts don't is just silly.
Is a VC internship useful? (Originally Posted: 07/06/2012)
I'm a rising junior and currently im interning at a VC firm.
Im working on a few projects and visited a few companies that the VC firm wants to invest in.
However my goal is to secure a BB IBD internship next summer, does a VC firm help me with that? I asked around and i heard mixed replies, some people say its an "amateur internship" while some other people say its good and will help.
Cheers
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