Why Norwest Venture Partners: Interviews, Careers, & Portfolio

Norwest Venture Partners Overview

Founded in 1961, Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is a growth equity and venture firm based in Palo Alto, California with additional offices in San Francisco, Mumbai, and Israel. 

The firm invests in early to late-stage companies in various sectors including healthcare, business and financial services, SaaS, internet, and cloud computing and information technology.

Jon Kossow, Jeff Crowe, and Promod Haque are the Co-Founders and Managing Partners of Norwest Venture Partners.

Aside from financial support, Norwest Venture Partners also help their portfolio companies in the multiple ways:

• Talent & People – attract & retain team members
• Marketing & Sales – build a strong GTM
• Capital Markets & Operations – maximize company valuation

The firm provides resources, extensive network, and expertise customized to the needs of the company.

As a result of the firm’s excellence, Norwest Venture Partners received several recognitions such as Inc. Founder Friendly Investors, VCJ 50: The Top Venture Fundraisers of 2021, Top 25 Private Equity Firms for Growth Companies, and Private Equity International 300.

Norwest Venture Partners AUM

According to public records, Norwest Venture Partners has a total of $12.5 billion in assets under management.

Norwest Venture Partners Interview Process & Questions

Firms have the capacity to change their interview process for each candidate. However, if you interview at Norwest Venture Partners (or a firm like it), you’ll most likely experience the following:

• Interview process consist of 4 to 6 rounds
• Junior investment professionals or the HR team handle the initial rounds, while the more senior folks supervise the later rounds
• Entire process can take several weeks (unless it is “on-cycle” or “on-campus” recruiting)

During your interviews at Norwest Venture Partners, anticipate a mixture of fit questions, behavioral questions, and investing / technical questions.

For interview preparation resources, I highly recommend you check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Why Norwest Venture Partners

One of the commonly asked and quite important interview questions is “Why this firm?”

If you met people who work at the firm during your networking efforts, this is the right time to mention whoever you’ve made connections with and share how their positive characteristics and experience at the firm strongly influenced your application.

Another thing you can do to prepare for the “why this firm” question is to research the firm. Listen to interviews with its founders, investors, and employees so you can gain more insights about their vision, strategy, and recent activities.

Here’s an interesting discussion with Sean Jacobsohn and Scott Beechuk, Partners at Norwest Venture Partners:

More interviews

• Interview with Sergio Monsalve from Norwest Venture Partners
• Interview with Pramod Haque, Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners

Norwest Venture Partners Case Study

Interviewees almost always have to conduct a case study during interviews. Firms use case studies to assess the technical knowledge and communication skills of their candidates.

Most case studies at firms like Norwest Venture Partners will have you perform financial modeling and investment recommendations. However, for junior roles, a cold calling case study may also be required.

Check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide to better understand and prepare for case studies.

Norwest Venture Partners Salary & Compensation

Norwest Venture Partners offers an estimated total pay of $97,822 to their analysts and $102,595 to their associates as per Glassdoor’s record. But keep in mind that these figures represent the median and can still change depending on the candidate’s experience, education, and skills.

Analyst

Associate

Norwest Venture Partners Careers, Jobs, & Internships

To find vacant positions at Norwest Venture Partners, go to our job board where you can also see other open roles from similar firms.

Norwest Venture Partners Portfolio & Investments

According to Crunchbase, Norwest Venture Partners has 880 investments and 12 funds since inception. Some notable deals for Norwest include Spotify, Adaptive Insights, and Talkspace.

Notable Transaction: Udemy

Udemy is one of the leading marketplace for online education, making learning top-quality content available to anyone and anywhere.

The company’s platform has over 16,000 courses on different topics which not only help people who want to learn, but also allow educators and experts to share and deliver quality learning experiences to users worldwide.

Since 2010, Udemy has grown tremendously.

• Over 300% revenue growth in the past 12 months
• Every month, 1,000 new online courses are created and uploaded in ten languages
• Over 8,000 experts joined to educate and share what they know
• Average instructors are making $7,000 on Udemy
• Since January 2014, the number of students is already around 3 million from more than 190 countries

On May 8, 2014, Udemy received a $32 million Series C investment. The funding round was led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation of existing investors MHS Capital and Insight Venture Partners. This funding round brought up Udemy’s total financing to $48M.

Udemy allocated the fund for expanding their international presence, improving product offers, and broadening their course library.

Next Steps

Norwest Venture Partners is definitely a great place to build your career in finance. To join their firm, it would require you to ace their interviews and stand out among dozens of qualified candidates. For this, I highly recommend you checking out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

This self-paced online course contains step-by-step video lessons, frameworks, mental models, and expert tips which will help you confidently answer interview questions, perform exercises, and impress your interviewers with your output.

Get the course and start learning today!