How Insight Partners uses Qualitate to reduce investor time on primary research

Bringing the voice of the market into investment decisions

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 December 31, 2025, the firm has over $90B in regulatory assets under management.

Jess Hacker, Director of Research & Data Services within Insight’s Diligence and Growth Strategy group, works across the firm to lead research and diligence. Jessica Goldstein, an investor at Insight, uses primary research across diligence and portfolio work to understand how companies and markets are evolving.

Before Qualitate, much of that primary research depended on traditional expert networks and investor-led calls. Insight still uses expert networks and conducts calls directly, but the process placed a natural ceiling on how much primary research the team could do.

For Goldstein, a typical project meant managing multiple provider threads, coordinating calendars and spending an hour on every expert conversation.

“We were just naturally constrained by the amount of conversations we were able to have,” Goldstein said. “In an ideal world, we would love to be able to have many conversations.”

Qualitate gave the team another way to reach that level of coverage.

“Qualitate automates the painful stuff about doing primary research while maintaining the quality of the conversations that we would have ourselves.”

Jessica Goldstein, Associate, DGS, Insight Partners

Making higher-volume primary research practical

Goldstein saw the difference clearly while helping one Insight portfolio company evaluate where to invest in AI.

The company wanted direct input on the AI products and features buyers would find most valuable. Insight used Qualitate to speak with 16 customers and partners in five days.

The feedback gave the company specific input on what customers wanted built sooner and what they would actually pay for. That research fed directly into product roadmap discussions.

Without Qualitate, Goldstein estimates Insight might have conducted three to five conversations for a similar portfolio project. Getting to 16 would have been difficult to fit around active diligence and other portfolio work.

“This would have looked much smaller if we didn’t have something like Qualitate, just due to capacity constraints,” she said.

“Qualitate has given us a way to reach that [sample size] with speed while maintaining the quality of conversations. We are able to confirm and validate hypotheses faster than we were able to before.”

Jessica Goldstein, Associate, DGS, Insight Partners

From 18-20 hours of work to about one hour

The time difference becomes more obvious at higher call volumes.

Goldstein estimates that conducting 15 expert calls traditionally would require about 15 hours for the conversations alone, plus several more hours coordinating schedules, adjusting interview guides and synthesizing notes.

For a project of that size, she estimates the traditional process would take roughly 18 to 20 hours of her team’s time. With Qualitate, her direct time can be closer to one hour, spent reviewing findings and working with the underlying research.

“We still have conversations ourselves. It’s something that we value,” Goldstein said. “But a lot more calls are also now happening through Qualitate.”

That changes which questions can justify primary research in the first place.

Starting with existing primary research

Insight also uses Qualitate before launching a custom project.

For broader market questions, Goldstein said the platform has become an early stop in the research process. Her team can search existing expert discussions to see what buyers and market participants are already saying, then use those findings to sharpen a custom research project when one is needed.

She describes it as “day zero research”: getting exposure to many expert perspectives at the beginning of a project rather than building that context one hour-long call at a time.

That existing research library is also an important part of how Hacker distinguishes Qualitate from other AI-moderated research tools.

“Qualitate is building a deep research library of transcripts that we can borrow insights from even before we launch a custom project. It's one of the key ways we believe Qualitate has set itself apart from the wave of AI moderators coming to market.”

Jess Hacker, Director of Research & Data Services, Insight Partners

AI moderation that runs like a conversation

Goldstein was initially skeptical of AI moderation. She expected the experience might resemble a rigid voice survey.

Instead, she found that the moderator could follow an interview guide while probing unexpected points that surfaced during the conversation.

“It doesn’t just run like a survey, but it runs like a conversation,” she said. “It can have those dynamic follow-ups with customers.”

That gave the team confidence that increasing call volume did not have to mean giving up the quality of the conversation.

Expanding across Insight

Insight’s use of Qualitate has grown with the platform.

Hacker inherited a relationship that was initially concentrated within Insight’s public markets and secondaries teams. As Qualitate expanded its market coverage, she saw adoption spread into the Diligence and Growth Strategy team and the investment team.

“As Qualitate expanded its coverage, we saw growing interest in our DGS team and our investment team as well. We saw that adoption across the organization in our main funds as well.”

Jess Hacker, Director of Research & Data Services, Insight Partners

For Goldstein, the broader impact is straightforward: primary research can now show up in more decisions because time and cost are less likely to be the constraint.

“I think going to a meeting or a conversation with your partner saying, ‘I wish I was able to have 10 different conversations, but I was constrained by time, I was constrained by the cost,’ that’s going to be a thing of the past,” she said.

“Primary intelligence has always been incredibly important for us. I think it’s only going to become more important, and the way in which we leverage it is just going to continue to grow.”

Jessica Goldstein, Associate, DGS, Insight Partners

*As of 12/31/2025.
Editor’s note: Insight Partners has invested in Qualitate.