I get a fair number of internship requests, as I suppose most mid-to-senior folks at VC firms do. Applicants range from undergrads (typically from engineering colleges but also these days from law schools, Indian liberal arts colleges and US / UK colleges), to graduating MBAs, MBAs looking at this for their summer internship, and increasingly from PreMBA applicants, wanting a VC stint before their MBA classes start.
If you are specifically looking to work with me, then I should share upfront that I don't usually manage or take on interns. My colleagues however may have slots, and the best way to know is to write to [email protected] - that said because of the high volume of mails there, you may get a reply only if there is an internship open, and suited to your profile.
The key challenge in taking on interns at my end is lack of sufficient mentorship bandwidth, or mentoring time. Time is the single most valuable resource in a VC firm. I prioritise allocation to portfolio first, and then to evaluating pipeline. Then there is my writing, or thinking aloud. Relatively little is left over for mentoring. There too, I prefer to give my mentorship bandwidth to the analyst who supports me, as well as colleagues who I manage.
My other concern with internships is that they are very asymmetric in the payoffs to both parties. Internees get exposure to how VC works, a flavour of the Indian startup ecosystem, and connects at Blume. There is learning, and quite valuable learning at that. From my side, I have to put in a fair bit of time and cognitive energy to bring the intern up to speed (of course they are all extremely quick to learn, etc., but they still need to align on goals, have clarity on output etc.) but after 2-3 months of training and mentoring, the intern walks out the door🙂
Another observation is that the applicant is very keen to get a flavour of investing / exposure to the investment process. Unlike in Private Equity (PE), where the investing process is drawn out, and valuation tools are used, and there are several meetings to finally close the deal, in Venture Capital, the investing process is very abbreviated. There is also no need for complex modelling or calculations. The picking process in VC is inverted vis-a-vis that of PE; we have a long preamble / thinking / building of world view and short transaction time in VC. There isn’t much ‘work’ to do for an external person / intern (in my humble opinion) on executing an investment in the venture world.
Occasionally, I might have a project - sometimes an investment thesis I need support on, sometimes an other project researching a problem or testing a hypothesis - which needs coverage from an intern. I almost always source interns in advance for these projects:)
So that is the paradox of internships when it comes to me. I almost always don't need internship support; but if I do, it is sourced in advance, and I can't satisfy walk-in requests☹️
(I apologise if this comes across as rude or patronising; it isn't meant to be. It is meant to be direct though, so I can save you time.)