Riviera Partners Receives Investment from Insight Partners

December 8, 2022 – San Francisco-based Riviera Partners, a recruitment provider specializing in C-level engineering, product and design leader placements, has received an investment from global software investor Insight Partners. Privately backed since 2019, this investment allows Rivera Partners to forge additional opportunities for its recruiters and employees to scale into new markets and geographies. Riviera Partners will continue to operate independently. “With thousands of open engineering, product, and design leadership roles across Insight Partners’ portfolio, we know how in-demand top talent is,” said Allyson White, managing director at Insight Partners. “Riviera Partners has established a best-in-class, tech-driven approach to finding the best product and engineering candidates. Hiring is a critical component to a company’s success regardless of their stage, and we recognize that Riviera plays a large role in the health of the software ecosystem. We look forward to working with Riviera Partners as they continue to grow and place top technical leadership that will build the future generational companies.”

“Today’s announcement validates what we have accomplished over the past few years and is an exciting next step in our growth journey,” said Will Hunsinger, CEO at Riviera Partners. “Insight Partners has been finding and funding visionary executives for the past two-plus decades. As Riviera Partners continues to scale and innovate to deliver the best service and experience to our clients and candidates, this investment made sense. We look forward to our future growth with Insight’s partnership and continuing to drive transformative change in the industry as talent remains a key focus for all companies.”

“Riviera Partners uniquely understood our needs and helped identify and place key tech talent at Tricentis,” said Kevin Thompson, CEO of Tricentis. “In addition to specialized recruiters that have access to the best candidates, they create unparalleled value by combining their team’s skills with powerful technology, data, and insights to deliver successful outcomes.”

A leader in the executive search space for almost 20 years, the global firm specializes in placing technology leaders in start-ups and enterprises across the U.S. and Europe. Riviera is a partner at all private and public company growth stages and has completed thousands of searches for companies such as Bumble, GoFundMe, Uber, Upwork, Snowflake, Tricentis, CircleCI, Figma, Ambient.ai, Roblox, Bill.com, HackerRank, Zendesk, and Discord, among others. The firm has seen significant growth in the U.S., partnering with venture capital and private equity firms to provide top technology and product leadership to their portfolio companies across all major technology hubs and brands.

Through machine learning algorithms, Riviera Partners identifies specialized, highly qualified candidates that fit an organization’s needs from 600,000 professionals across tech geographies. Riviera can often provide a short list of candidates in 30 days and has a success rate of over 95 percent. “Speed and efficiency are what clients now want, and demand, of their talent providers, especially in the PE and VC world where time is short and value creation has to happen at lightning speed,” said Scott A. Scanlon, CEO and co-founder of Hunt Scanlon Media. Leadership talent, he said, is more often than not the key lever driving it all.

Insight Partners is a global software investor partnering with high-growth technology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. As of June 30, 2022, the firm has over $80 billion in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 700 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO.

Artico Search Lands Managing Director for Insight Partners
Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, a co-founder of Artico Search, has placed Whitney Bouck as managing partners Insight Partners, a global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software scaleup companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. “The search was for an operating MD to join Insight Partners’ team,” said Ms. Chatfield-Taylor. “Insight is one of the world’s most accomplished investors in the global scaleup software arena focused on three pillars of scale, focus and experience. We needed an operator whose experience was emblematic of that focus. Someone who knew how great companies get to scale, and what excellence looks like.”
“We were fortunate as this focus resonated with top operators,” Ms. Chatfield-Taylor added. “Whitney Bouck was a clear match, as a deeply experienced enterprise software executive, with over 30 years of experience in leadership, strategy, sales, marketing, and business operations. She’s also deeply passionate about helping other executives find success so the match was ideal.”

Headquartered in New York City, Insight has offices in London, Tel Aviv, and Palo Alto. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success.

Recent Growth

This latest round of funding follows Riviera Partners’ recent growth in London with the addition of Pete Alexander as a partner. Mr. Alexander joined Riviera Partners after 11 years with The Up Group, a digitally focused search, advisory, and networking firm where he led the product and tech practice. Prior to The Up Group, he spent five years at Skill Capital, an executive search firm focused on the European private equity space. “As our momentum continues to grow in Europe, Pete is a great and valued addition to our team, bringing a wealth of experience and a shared philosophy around the value of community building and relationships,” said Mr. Hunsinger.

Mr. Alexander was the second partner to join the London office in several months; Myriam Vacher joined in June. Ms. Vacher came to Riviera Partners from True Search and brings extensive experience conducting C-suite and other senior-level searches for VC and PE-backed high-growth technology companies across the EMEA region. Prior to going into search, Ms. Vacher was a strategy consulting and account leadership executive at Accenture. In her early professional career, she focused on M&A work and held a mix of strategy and finance roles in industry and at a Big Four firm.

“Myriam is a highly respected recruiting partner with a proven track record in helping tech businesses hire the right talent for critical points in their lifecycle, be it at early stage, emerging growth or established enterprises,” said Mr. Hunsinger. “She’s an outstanding addition to our London-based team.”

Privately Backed Since 2019

In 2019, Riviera Partners closed a minority investment of $25 million led by private equity firms Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors and ROCA Partners. The financing will be used to fund Riviera Partners’ continued geographic expansion, strategic acquisitions, enhancements to its Sutro platform and the addition of staff to meet the increased demand for its services. 

“We target high growth companies that bring game changing software, processes and analytics to industries that are often behind the technology curve,” said Nishita Cummings, partner at Kayne Partners Fund. “In the same way that advanced analytics changed the game of baseball, we believe that Riviera’s proprietary technology and processes are changing the way executive recruiting is done. We are thrilled to become an integral part of helping them grow during this exciting time.”

Related: Riviera Partners Acquires Arete Partners, Creates Riviera Ventures

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media