Growth Equity

“It's always been growth equity. Same stage, same strategy, same thesis, the whole way through. So the check size has increased a bit, so that means, you know, we tend to own a little bit more of the company than we once did, but still staying in that minority …”

“Summit and TA were the two kind of first growth equity firms to create this category”

“We did an exercise where we all reached out to folks. We had, you know, connections, friends that work at other firms, and we asked them, you know, what industries are you not touching right now? Like, you can't bring it to investment committee. Like, you just…”

“So what's happened is a lot of the institutional allocation portfolios who never used to invest in growth equity, their most successful venture investments have created a very meaningful bucket of growth equity that they can't exit.”

“And then you have to be a specialist. Can't be a generalist anymore.”

“So there, there's the struggle of trying to figure out how to put it together. And also seeing that not as many deals as we would think, many deals get started, not as many of them get close, get to close.”

“Unlike in the pure venture capital place, it's essentially, you know, once you're out there raising cash, the terms are relatively clearly set. We're doing sort of a, using a set of forms that everybody's very comfortable with in this particular space. There's…”

“It's the tough conversations happen a little bit late, and those tough conversations are about exit, and they're about control, and they're not often about valuation. Those conversations get solved really quickly, and folks think, oh, we're done. We've got our…”

“Energy and renewables, battery storage data centers, any one of the new kind of topics that are, or newer topics that are that are drawing a lot of growth equity and investment, capital investment.”

“Most of those companies can't raise growth equity anymore because growth equity is running more towards AI than software.”

“Very few people able to raise growth in late 2022 and 20 23. The tailwinds just aren't in your favor. It doesn't matter how good you are.”

“But the final thing that I think is really important for like why now is an amazing time for growth equity investing is we're in this period of capital where there, and yes, taking the conversation we had earlier around there are some parts of the market that …”

“We didn't have LPs that were institutional. We didn't know anybody on Wall Street. We actually started out in venture capital and growth equity because you could just write checks, didn't rely on other people's checks. And the money we raised was from the part…”

“A big endowment just said growth equity doesn't work.”

“Growth is different from early stage. Not every investment has to have the potential to be a fund returner. You could have every investment have the potential to be somewhere between two and four X in growth, and that's great. So if you speak to LPs, the expos…”

“The best way to win a process is often for us to avoid the process.”

“So the good GPs attract the good LPs, and this all also attracts the greatest portfolio companies. It's super important to get into those best top names.”

“It is a access class, not just an asset class, and so that means you may not be able to do as much venture. There's still great venture companies out there. It's the new breed, the people that leave the larger firms and start up and do great at a smaller size,…”

“We think on a risk reward basis, and our data shows this in our funds over the past five funds, that investing in growth equity on a risk return basis is a far more compelling Opportunity and attractive opportunity, particularly given its liquidity profile tha…”

“We've never seen a company that's profitable and growing its EBITDA 50% quarter for quarter, raise at such low multiples and have so much trouble raising because so many people say, ah, just we haven't figured out the market yet.”

“It had a lack of correlation. It's really hard to find. It had attributes that looked a little bit like a blend of core infrastructure, core real estate, but also growth equity.”

“But in general, if you had to place it in one, I think growth equity does make some sense. These are minority stake investments typically going to be used for some sort of growth action.”

“The rounds in growth are extremely competitive, just like any segment. And the way to compete is by being in the ready position, like already having your thesis, already kind of knowing what price you would invest, already kind of being able to activate dilige…”

“Yeah, I mean, I think within venture, there's still limits to scaling that you don't see in large growth equity or in elements of buyout. I think there still is a limit You don't see a ton of multi-billion dollar funds, and even the funds that are above a bill…”

“Our portfolio has no large buyout at all, because we think that, well, that makes the capacity so much harder, by the way, but we think that large buyout is really just levered equities, typically. And if there's skill added on top, and there might be, then mo…”

“So I would say that investing writ large across growth equity, private equity, has commoditized To a very high degree over the last decade in a way that would not have been the case in the prior 10 years to that.”