Insight Venture track record

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Insight Venture Partners is a New York-based private equity and venture capital firm founded in 1995 by **** ****** and Jerry Murdock. Since the creation of this firm 17 years ago, this company now has a capital base of around $5 billion dollars. To put that into perspective, Jagex ltd. is worth about $25 million U.S. dollars.

Now IV has been with Jagex since 2005 holding only around 35% of the shares up until December 2010 when IV increased their shareholdings to 55.45% . Constant Tedder, Andrew Gower and Paul Gower left the board of directors as representatives after hearing this news. Since december 2010 many updates have been made to try and raise profit and revenue, most notably the loyalty rewards update and the ability to buy squeal of fortune spins.

Here is an example of a company who went under after IV got involved.

Spacetime Studios attempted to create an mmo that could run on mobile smart phone, for example an iphone or an android. When IV got involved, their monetization plan completely changed. Here it is:
Monetization: 3 Tier system:
1. allow progression through player commitment and "in character" gold currency (no fee)
2. Allow players to purchase items in MICROTRANSACTIONS - (im sure you know this word) to complement but not compete with 1.
3. Supply high quality updates and content releases that are purchasable using in-game currency platinum that are optional but grow the game organically depending on player feedback.

In other words, money can buy "decent" weapons you still have to grind for level experience and "good" weapons. Sound similar? Squeal of fortune?


Another company is 6waves created back in 2010 that created popular apps and games for facebook etc.Since IV(Insight Ventures) got involved they have now announced massive layoffs of developers to focus on promotion/maximising profits etc.

If none of that convinced you that IV sinks companies then look at this list of companies taken directly from the IV portfolio that have gone inactive after IV started investing in them. The list... is staggering.

cut list as it was huge

95 companies have sunk ever since Insight Ventures have taken control of them.

Wonder how long til Runescape is on the list