Jeff Horing - Building Insight Partners - [Invest Like the Best, EP.440]

What It Covers

Jeff Horing reveals how Insight Partners built a $100 billion software-focused investment firm through systematic sourcing with 60-80 analysts cold-calling companies globally, a contrarian one-fund strategy deploying $12 billion across all stages, and operational support infrastructure that creates competitive advantages in winning deals.

Key Questions Answered

• •Sourcing Infrastructure: Insight employs 60-80 people systematically calling companies worldwide, starting with undergraduates who make 25+ calls per company. This model generates more deal flow than any competitor, with partners' calendars dictated by 24-year-old analysts who surface opportunities. The firm covers everything through technology-assisted targeting and human persistence, including showing up uninvited at company offices.
• •One Fund Economics: A single $12 billion fund deploys across $10 million growth deals to billion-dollar buyouts, enabling risk management through check sizing and double-down bets on winners. Insight converted $5 million positions into $1 billion stakes in companies like Monday and Vno by maintaining relationships and follow-on capacity that separate funds cannot match due to charter constraints.
• •Software Valuation Framework: Focus on gross dollar retention and growth rate as primary drivers. Companies with low-80s GDR face filling 20% revenue holes annually at scale, killing unit economics. The firm targets 95%+ GDR businesses unless confident they can fix retention issues. Time-to-value matters critically—SAP's three-year implementation versus OpenAI's instant value fundamentally limits growth velocity.
• •Perfect Investment Formula: Five ingredients define ideal deals: big ROI value proposition, large average selling price, fast time-to-value, exceptional CEO, and strong technical team. Wiz exemplifies this by doubling net new bookings annually for six years. Compare your ASP to dominant players—if Epic sells $10 million annually and you sell $500,000, best case market share is one-twentieth of Epic's size.
• •Scaling Judgment: Insight solved the scale problem by creating eight investment committee pods where 20-25 year veterans own every deal alongside younger partners. This prevents the mom-and-dad dynamic where senior partners half-listen and young partners get stuck with troubled investments. IC members spend three hours minimum on each team's deals, applying pattern recognition from thousands of pitches to maintain underwriting quality.