Does anyone have any recent information on Insight Partners? The forum doesn't have much mention of the firm, and a majority of the information here is pretty dated. They recently raised their eleventh fund at $9.5B, and I know they recruit undergrads which is isn't the norm for VC/PE. Looking for any information whatsoever on culture, how it's viewed by other firms, work and salary, etc. etc.
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also interested
It's basically a sourcing sweatshop. Not saying thats a bad thing, but I know a few former analysts that all exited from there to top notch growth equity / VC firms, not sure how they do for more traditional PE exits though.
The three people I know from there all went Insight (2 years) -> other VC/growth equity (2 years) -> top Bschool, so definitely seems like a respected firm, but not sure how PE exits would compare to top IB jobs.
What about the Associate program?
What types of firms are you referring to when you say "top notch growth equity / VC firms? Like General Atlantic/TA/Sequoia level of exit?
What's the rationale behind exiting from Insight to another growth equity firm after two years? Isn't Insight already the best in the industry, along with GA?
People will typically leave to another fund if they are offered a faster track to partner, higher comp, or ability to work on specific verticals/deals that excite them more
Interested
A lot of sourcing work, prepare to do a lot of cold calls. Check out their people page—they take a lot of people from Harvard, Stanford and other top targets. Pretty high quality of analysts in general (e.g. ken moelis’s daughter and robert pruzan’s son both work there)
On culture (Note: don't know anyone still there, so info is a little bit dated) it seems relatively collegial among junior folks, with lots of informal work events, and a relatively social environment. Sourcing roles tend to favor people with a warm and outgoing personality, so you see that a lot among their people.
That said I understand that the culture among senior folks is extremely aggressive and competitive. I heard reports that if you had a company on your CRM dashboard, didn't get them on the phone, and they raised a round in Insight's box... you were in big trouble. Known for having quotas for calls made per week among interns / analysts, which is a good accountability metric but does mean it's tougher to BS if you aren't performing.
There's plenty of room to climb the ranks in the org, but people who do exit tend to do so laterally / downmarket to VC with fewer folks going to buyout shops (though that may change as Insight starts to do more big deals). They are generally seen as among the top players (if not #1) in their segment, so the caliber of firms / companies moved to is also high.
As others have mentioned, sourcing is very important at the Analyst level for Insight. However, it should not be a deterrent if you are truly interested in software/growth investing. Most, if not all, growth shops will have sourcing at the Analyst level to some extent.
They mainly hire from a few target schools every year and the class size is big compared to other top growth equity shops that have a dedicated and formal new grad program. Many of the Analysts treat the program as a two and out like you would see at investment banks and they usually end up finding another strong venture/growth fund to join after two years. I don't think Insight's reputation within the industry is lacking by any means.
If you know for sure that you want to do growth equity / venture capital long term, then I wouldn't hesitate to join their team if given the chance.
Thoughts on joining a shop like Insight vs a mid-tier BB for someone interested in growth/tech investing? Curious about trade-offs in terms of exit opps.
deleted; thought this was fresh thread
I went through their process. I applied without networking. Am a non diversity and non-target but my school is a target for this firm. Interviews were very laid back and focused on what I knew about the tech and software space and what differentiates a firm that makes it grow. Did not accept offer as I got a very weird vibe from the people who interviewed me.
Do you remember at what point in the year applications opened up? Looking to apply for FT 2021.
FT will open in August I believe
The handshake app is already open at my school.
what school is a nontarget but a “target” for insight?
Do you mind if I PM'ed you to ask about the interview?
Curious to hear why the vibes were weird. Was this a recurring theme in your interactions with Inisght people?
Does anyone have intel on their buyouts team?
Insight have just updated their careers page (https://www.insightpartners.com/about-us/join-our-team/) with a FAQ on both their 2021 FT processes (Investment and Onsite) and they mention that they use SmartRecruiters, but there are no links to the actual job postings. I'm guessing they've emailed the links to target schools. Can anyone verify?
yes the app has been out for months now and they scheduled and had to cancel super day(s) due to COVID in April. don’t know what’s up now tho
Interesting, in those FAQs I linked they mention they will begin reviewing apps "mid-summer", which I would presume is the last week-10 days of this month.
Do you know if those superdays were for the summer internship or full-time?
Insight Associate recruiter?
Also interested
CPI
interested.
is it possible to recruit for summer if you're not at a target school for them? (i.e. not harvard, penn, princeton, etc)
bump
Anybody have insight into the Onsite case interviews?
Has anyone heard any recent news?
superday offers came out last wednesday confirmed
are they having more superdays or is the class full?
bump
They had one in May, one in June and there will be at least one more in July
Has anyone gotten an interview for FT recruitment?
Starting in August from what I’ve heard
Did anyone hear back getting a virtual cover letter for 2021 FT process? Any advice on what I should to do to prepare and what typically is asked in these virtual cover letters?
Did the video interview back in March, its pretty standard hirevue stuff
Is this a good company to work for? Will you actually learn or is it just glorified cold calling? any insights would be great
fuck outta here with that pun
just curious, are you in their interview process rn?
What is comp like? For both FT analyst and SA?
bump
bump
rejections are out
for the internship?
Following
interested in Comp as well
i saw on another thread it can be 200k - although this sounds a little high
200k is too high for an analyst, i'd say around 160k first year
Got an invite for an interview after submitting video cover letter, transcript, resume. Had a coffee chat back in April. Recruiter agreed to delay interview until after my current internship is done.
is this for the 2021 internship role or full-time?
FT
Does anyone have information on the General Atlantic SA or FT analyst process?
also interested
Believe GA is done and that they aim to take all FT from the SA class, but there might be a spot or two that opens up.
does anyone have info about the day to day of working at insight? solid exit opp info? comp info?
In my opinion its one of the best growth investors out there in tech. People on this site make sourcing out to be something negative which I don't understand. I much rather meet companies and try to find deals then to model out IMs i.e. look at things that the entire industry is looking at esp. if we talk about winners of tomorrow and fundamental shifts in industries. If you want to invest in companies in the growth stage and not just do momentum deals, then you need to know all companies in certain fields as well as deals out there. In my (limited) interactions with Insight, they always appeared as a high conviction and aggressive investors but on the back of very deep sector knowledge. I have seen them try to preempt a couple of times for example in quite aggressive fashion. The enterprise software people I interacted with are top notch esp. in infrastructure. I don't know about their later stage funds and business outside the enterprise software field. The more junior people (mostly senior assoc / VP) I interacted with have also always been quite impressive and stood out compared to some other funds when it comes to knowing sectors and the companies within e.g. although they are not based in Europe I have seen them many times being more precise in tracking companies and their KPIs in Europe than their European counterparts. This is exactly what you will be doing as an analyst/ associate. Someone will have a view what field is interesting and what shift is taking place to create the winners of tomorrow and you will map out all companies in this space and try to meet them to track the KPIs (whatever is relevant in this market / thesis) and try to find / create deals (ideally with the best company in the space). This obviously often translates into a #s game but that's just normal. As long as you call in sector because someone has a view vs. just finding companies needing a ticket and then learning about the space, you should be ok. Compared to some other tech investors, I have found Insight and some of their peers to be more market trend first and #s second oriented vs. some of the growth investors that are moving down from the pure LBO world and go #s first (which makes sense given they mostly just do SaaS and don't need real shift in the thesis). This also means sometimes the cheque is larger than one would expect or the company younger or the valuation higher (whatever the specifics of the sectors and your thesis are) etc. i.e. the tech thesis comes first and structure later. This point is purely my perception based on a very limited number of datapoints. Their office view is a perk, too. Cant speak on hours but I imagine its best comparable to Summit, TA, Summeru, TCV and all the other tech growth guys.
I've worked both in sourcing and on sell-side (albeit doing CDDs at a consulting firm, but nonetheless on timelines of deals with processes run by bankers).
The lifestyle is so overwhelmingly between investing in a company with a process run by a bank and investing in a company where the process is not run by a bank. It's hard to put in words but the former is more structured akin to a semester at school; ease into exam (first bid) have a brief rest then hit the ground running preparing for next exam (second bid) then go all out until finals (final bid) then get a week off for Christmas break; as opposed to; source, work on a deal that's getting a little farther a long but less "pants on fire", more sourcing, more control over your calendar because it's less structured, etc. The latter is definitely way less stressful but the former does create an environment where you can get a lot of good work done in such a structured environment.
how good is the rep of insight? will it open doors??
following.
Are you actually reading what other people post, or is it a complete waste of time to do so? Open doors to what exactly? But yet, it will open doors
Former Insight Analyst here - now a senior associate at a different firm.
Insight base is 85K base + 10K signing bonus + 75K bonus first year. The 75K bonus is what 100% of people get, so essentially 170K guaranteed.
In addition you get 25K of phantom fund equity in the current fund, as well as 5K bonuses per M&A and standalone investment that you source. You also get additional carry in every deal you source.
So in my class I think most people averaged 180K - 200K in cash comp their first year and in the few tens of thousands in additional deal based carry outside of their 25K in the fund
awesome thanks for the info!
what are hours like? and may i ask why did you leave?
hours were very manageable, much better than my friends in consulting and banking. I think when i first started I worked 9 - 8 ish (they have a gym and lunch served each day so typically that's 2 hours people take off throughout the day too). Also, since it's cyclical, in the summer almost no one comes into the office - several people in my class took all of August off. In general you also get a lot more opportunities to travel for sourcing and no one monitors you on a day to day basis.
What doors does Insight open? Does everyone leave for VC or can you stay in growth? Is A2A common?
people typically do all kinds of things - few people go into pure private equity - some go to other late stage growth funds that have some venture buyout aspect, others want to go early stage, others go and get very desirable roles at startups, a few go and start their own funds. the program is also not 2 and out, a ton of people stay at least through the Associate program (promotion happens 1.5 years in)
What is comp like at an associate level? Analyst level is really competitive... does it drop off after?
Salary doesn't tap out at all, in fact it continues to be most competitive in the industry. Associate promotion happens after just 1.5 years and it's pretty much yours to lose. 250K is the associate package for the first 6 months and 150K in carry + more deal carry for individually sourced things, and then bumps up to 310K after first 6 months of Associate. In general pays more than all the megafunds (Silverlake, KKR, Apax, etc.) as you have a ton of carry from such a young age
do you know what their intern return offer rates are like?
How were exit opps from Insight like? Did HH read out to you with on-cycle recruiting or opportunities at other large-cap PE/Growth funds?
has anyone gotten a final round yet (after the video cover letter)?
Bump on this. I'm also waiting to hear back about final round
SA or FT?
yes for ft
How long did it take to hear back after you submitted your video cover letter? Also when did you hear back?
submitted my SA video cover letter June 24, still haven’t heard from them
same..
When did you do your virtual interview for SA?
Have they sent out FT rejections yet?
I don't think anyone has gotten rejected as yet
Has anyone else heard about the next round for FT?
On their website it says FT is late summer early fall so we will probs hear back in August. Perhaps the other person who heard back is working for a competitor
bumb
Onsite full time first rounds are out and scheduled. Not sure about Investment
Any idea if there will be multiple rounds? Talked to a few members of the team and recruiting and they mentioned delaying interviews until later in the summer after internships.
I heard the same thing, although maybe just got dinged
anyone have any idea about when FT investment will occur? Are they still doing SA, and they are waiting to do FT after? also do they normally hire a lot outside their interns?
Also interested - Any word on this
bump
Any updates on SA and when final rounds will take place?
Was wondering if anyone had any perspective on the Onsite program (comp/interview/lifestyle)?
What's the format for the virtual cover letter?
Opinions on this vs. IBD internship for an undergraduate who is a little iffy on early-stage investing? IBD clearly offers more optionality but work-life/pay seem better @ insight.
the earliest insight really does investments is series a (and only a few), most are series c with a growing number of buyouts
not really "early-stage" investing, for what that's worth
FT interview updates?
bumpo
Where are you in the process?
I just submitted my FT Video Cover Letter. Oof now the wait begins
any updates on SA?
Has anyone received a FT interview for Onsite?
Yo - you want to do some Interview prep in case? PM me
Anyone receive a FT Interview for Investment?
nah not yet, will probs hear back soonish tho as internships are wrapped up
Any idea on the structure of the recruitment process. Is it Application - Video Cover Letter - Superday? Ie. only one real interview?
That's how it was for me--a little confused because no real interview before Superday
You only had one superday and that was it? A later comment mentioned two super days
Said they will begin reviewing completed applications in mid-summer, with Superday’s schedule for late summer and early fall
Os this referring to SA or FT?
Anyone have any tips about the superday? Got one for next week only after the resume screen and video cover letter and not sure what to expect
Is this superday for Investments or Onsite?
investments intern
first super day 3 15 min interviews second super day 2 15 min interviews mostly fit questions, why software, why investing, etc.
This is for the SA role? And why did the second super day only have two interviews?
When did you have your superday?
i want to work here :(
Any updates on FT investment interviews post-cover letter?
Nope
Interviews will take place at the end of August
Any updates on FT Onsite interviews? Are they completely done or have they yet to start?
final rounds just got booked
Any idea if there will be multiple rounds? Or is this it?
For just Onsite or Investment Analyst too?
Senior Associate told me they have already filled the spots for FT Investment Analyst
sounds false
Bro I am PRAYING its false, but I keep looking over the email and it seems true
BS lol I got email from recruitment asking if I have any offer deadlines
Any updates?
Just got this email so I think it is false but who knows:
"We are currently reviewing completed applications for the 2021 Full Time Investment Analyst. You should hear back from us shortly with next steps in the process. If you have an exploding offer or have already accepted an offer for 2021, please let me know as soon as possible."
what do you mean the email is false?
He meant the post saying they had already filled spots is false. Also got that email.
same. did everyone get this email or does it mean anything?
probs everyone
who knows? sounds generic
i wonder how 'shortly' we will hear back
did anyone else just get rejected lol
for FT?
Yes
Did they email you or did you see it on the recruiting website?
so does that mean for those that didnt get rejected we have a superday?
Roommate got an email rejection this morning. Other guy I know and me haven't received anything. Might just be a "reject as you go" thing
Anyone else got rejected?
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