Insight’s 2023 year in review: AI, awards, and reflections on our portfolio partnership

2023 has been a testament to Insight’s commitment to fostering innovation and supporting growth. Despite the many real challenges the world faced this past year — inflation, a banking crisis, and geopolitical unrest — our focus remains on being the best partners for today’s software leaders who are making a lasting impact in the world of technology.

A continued legacy of technology investment

With over 25 years of investing in software, we close 2023 with 800+ total investments to date — 29 new investments and over 10 exits in 2023 — and $80B in regulatory assets under management.

Leading the conversations in AI

AI was certainly the top tech story in 2023, and our team regularly offered their expertise to our portfolio, the press, and top enterprise executives — culminating in our biggest ScaleUp:AI conference to date: nearly 40 industry-leading speakers, 12 thought-provoking sessions, and 1,800 total attendees.

#scaleupai Designing & scaling #responsibleAI @GovTechGeek of Diligent Institute: “Only 31% of the Board members of S&P 500 companies are technically savvy, they see #GenAI as the biggest opportunity and a challenge” – must train on #ArtificialInteligence, #ethics @scaleupevent pic.twitter.com/hw22YWO0xS

— Tendu Yogurtcu (@TenduYogurtcu) October 27, 2023

An award-winning team and firm

External recognition for the achievements of our team and firm validates our efforts — but it doesn’t drive our actions.

• Business Insider Rising Stars of European VC
• Business Insider Rising Stars of VC
• Forbes 30 Under 30
• GrowthCap Top 25 Healthcare Investors
• GrowthCap Top 25 Software Investors
• GrowthCap Top Growth Equity Firms of 2022 (based on 2022 performance)
• GrowthCap Top Private Equity Firms
• GrowthCap Top Women Leaders in Growth Investing
• HEC / DowJones Growth Capital Performance Rankings
• Inc. Best Workplaces 2023
• Inc. Founder-Friendly Investors
• VCJ Rising Stars
• Venture Forward Pride Month

More than a platform, a ScaleUp engine

Our most valued highlight can’t be easily summed up in a tidy graphic: all the many ways we’ve partnered with our founders and portfolio leaders over the past year.

Insight Onsite: Actionable advisory

Our Onsite team of experienced software operators engaged with over 500 companies in our portfolio this year, sharing actionable best practices on go-to-market, product, and people — vetting executive talent, and working cross-functionally to deliver insights that helped our portfolio meaningfully adopt generative AI.

A CEO peer network

While Insight expanded our portfolio with 29 new investments, we continued to support the growth of 500+ active portfolio companies through Onsite’s advisory and 100+ events.

Our CEOs were treated to an incredible series of MINDSET events, where hundreds of connections and ideas were shared.

Other major highlights were our DRIVE conference for go-to-market leaders and the ScaleUp Suite at RSA.

Igniting enterprise relationships

IGNITE is Insight’s network for enterprise tech executives and software founders to connect, learn from each other, and power growth. Focused on cybersecurity, data and AI, digital experience, infrastructure and DevOps sectors, they made over 1,300 connections between our portfolio and global enterprise executives in 2023.

Read more founder and leadership stories (including Laminar’s exit story: From idea to acquired in 3 years) from our portfolio.

A trusted partner to founders

“[The funding and support from Insight Partners was] the moment we flipped from being a startup project to a scaling, growing company”

– Lukas Biewald, co-founder and CEO, Weights & Biases. (pictured above)

“She tracked me down and got me on the phone, and it was purportedly just to give her some advice on a few things. And the first thing she said was: ‘I need you to take my independent board seat.’”

– Insight Partners Managing Director Whit Bouck, on Writer Co-founder and CEO May Habib

“We have a shared vision for where serverless development could go with WebAssembly. We also both really like a good loaf of rye!”

Knowing [Fermyon Co-founder and CEO] Matt Butcher was a fan, Insight Partners Managing Director Michael Yamnitsky brought him a loaf from Tartine bakery in San Francisco, carrying it with him on the plane to Boulder. 

The portfolio companies and portfolio company executives presented are examples of portfolio companies that Insight has worked with to assist the company achieve business and capital raising goals and are not intended to be a representative sample of all portfolio companies. The statements by portfolio company executives are intended to highlight their experiences working with Insight as an investor in their companies. The experiences of other portfolio companies and portfolio company executives may differ from the experiences presented. Insight did not provide compensation to the portfolio company executives or portfolio companies in connection with the statements provided by such executives. There is no guarantee that Insight’s work with other portfolio companies will produce similar results to those presented.