Venture capital (VC) firm Insight Partners is reportedly preparing to close a $10 billion-plus fund.
As the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (Sept. 15), the fund is around half the amount the company had initially planned, but a sign that tech investors are returning to the VC market.
Insight won’t close on its fund until early 2025 but at least $10 billion has been committed, sources told the FT, adding that the final figure could be close to $12 billion. PYMNTS has contacted Insight for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.
The VC market has been on a downward trend since 2022, the report noted, though investors are making their way back, with firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital and Iconiq Growth raising nearly $20 billion.
Andreessen Horowitz, announced in April that it had raised $7.2 billion for tech startups, including those in the artificial intelligence (AI) field. And Iconiq recently closed its largest fund to date at $5.75 billion.
Meanwhile, a source tells the FT that General Catalyst is also close to closing a new fund of more than $6 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Following a drought in initial public offerings, the report added, a resurgence in dealmaking has eased the pressure on the VC sector. In fact, Insight recently saw two of its portfolio companies acquired in the past week, with Mastercard purchasing Recorded Future for $2.65 billion and Salesforce buying Own for $1.9 billion.
Another source tells the FT that Insight has set up a continuation fund, which lets partners sell their positions in portfolio companies to other investors while allowing Insight to hold onto its share of the underlying company.
Among the startups in that fund is cybersecurity business Wiz, which called off a planned $23 billion acquisition from Google in July, the source said.
Still, $10 billion is a big step down from the $20 billion Insight raised in 2022. In 2023, the firm reduced its target from $20 billion to $15 billion after raising just $2 billion from investors.
“They have had to take their medicine, the whole market has,” said one New York venture capitalist.
PYMNTS noted earlier this year that Insight was among the “titans” in the AI funding space, having poured about $4 billion into AI firms as of March.
