New York-based Insight Venture Partners announced today the close of its fifth fund on $1.25 billion (€928 billion). Insight Venture Partners VI is nearly twice the size of the firm’s last fund, which closed on $675 million in May 2005. Insight’s existing investors committed approximately 80 percent of Fund VI.
Founded in 1995 by managing directors Jerry Murdock and Jeff Horing, Insight invests in expansion stage and mid-market buyout transactions and focuses on companies in the software, technology, and internet services sectors.
The size of the latest fund does not signify a change in investment strategy, but rather is a response to the strength of deal flow that Insight is currently experiencing, said Deven Parekh, a managing director on the firm’s investment team. He noted that the firm’s previous fund had a shorter investment period than anticipated.
“We’re not expecting a significant change in our investment base,” Parekh said, “But we want this fund to last for a longer investment period.”
While investing Fund VI, Insight will hold to its strategy of investing in growing software and internet technology companies. The firm’s managers will have the flexibility to invest from $10 million to $100 million of equity in a single transaction, and is looking to invest in some 30 companies.
Insight promoted five new managing directors last week in the run-up to the fund’s close. Ben Levin and George McCulloch have been promoted on the deal side, while Hilary Gosher and Nikitas Koutoupes joined the firm’s operations consulting arm. Blair Flicker was promoted to chief compliance officer.
The firm’s previous fund has invested in 21 companies to date. Last week the firm bought the Enterprise Group, a division of Ziff-Davis that produces online content, for $150,000 in cash. In May, Insight led a consortium of firms to take Netsmart Technologies, a software supplier, private for $115 million.
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