Compare / Markets / Accel vs Insight Partners

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Accel vs Insight Partners: growth-stage portfolios, almost level

Insight Partners edges Accel by 1.7 points on a comparison the coverage check allows. Both hold 25 exemplars.

Accel

24.8 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 13.3 · agent-aware
645 scored providers · vc
VS

Insight Partners

26.5 average
thin on average
Agent readiness 13.8 · agent-aware
689 scored providers · vc

Each sun is drawn from the cohort's averages: six facet rings, the mean Kin Score and mean agent readiness.

A clean comparisonThe higher-scoring cohort is not the one we enriched more deeply (depth_confounded: false), so this gap can be read as a difference between the markets.

Two growth-stage investors with portfolios of almost identical size and depth: 645 scored Accel companies and 689 from Insight Partners. Insight averages 26.5 against Accel’s 24.8, with medians of 20.9 and 17.8. Each portfolio holds exactly 25 exemplars, and they share an 89.0 ceiling.

depth_confounded is false, and both portfolios sit at a median of eight artifact directories and almost the same catalog gap. So the small lead is a real portfolio difference. Insight is ahead on every facet by a point or two, the largest being access clarity (30.3 against 28.0) and developer ergonomics (27.9 against 25.6). Agent readiness is nearly level at 13.8 against 13.3, and first-party MCP is 19% against 18%.

Accel leads on one adoption rate, Arazzo workflows (4% against 3%). Compare this with the YC vs a16z pair: growth-stage portfolios score higher than accelerator portfolios across the board, and the gap between two growth investors is smaller than the gap between two accelerators.

The distributions

AccelInsight PartnersDelta
Kin Score, mean24.826.5-1.7
Kin Score, median17.820.9-3.1
Kin Score, highest8989
Kin Score, std dev2020
Agent readiness, mean13.313.8-0.5
Agent readiness, highest67.365.8

Delta is Accel minus Insight Partners, as the tool returns it.

Where the providers sit

Accel

exemplar 25strong 41developing 98thin 95emerging 175minimal 211

Insight Partners

exemplar 25strong 49developing 116thin 103emerging 187minimal 209

Facet averages

FacetAccelInsight PartnersDelta
Discoverability 58.7 59.9 -1.2
Contract Quality 18.5 19 -0.5
Contract Governance 6.8 7.8 -1
Operational Transparency 16.2 17.5 -1.3
Developer Ergonomics 25.6 27.9 -2.3
Access Clarity 28 30.3 -2.3

What they publish

Share of each cohort's providers publishing each artifact. mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.

ArtifactAccelInsight PartnersDelta
First-party MCP server18%19%-1
Any MCP artifact (incl. derived)20%20%0
OAuth scopes14%15%-1
Spectral rules14%15%-1
Arazzo workflows4%3%+1
Agent skills0%0%0
Security artifact100%99%+1

How well we know each cohort

The coverage behind the averages. A cohort with a higher catalog gap and fewer artifact directories has been enriched less, so part of any difference is our coverage rather than the market.

AccelInsight Partners
Declared members722764
Scored (in the averages)645 (90%)689 (91%)
Thinly covered572614
Median artifact directories88
Mean catalog gap (points we could add)77.777.6
The full compare_cohorts response
{"a":{"kind":"vc","slug":"accel","name":"Accel","members":716,"stats":{"kind":"vc","slug":"accel","name":"Accel","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":722,"resolved_members":716,"scored_members":645,"agent_scored_members":645,"scored_share_pct":90,"unexamined_members":68,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":77.7,"median_artifact_dirs":8,"n":645,"thinly_covered":572,"thinly_covered_of":645,"thin_coverage_note":"572 of 645 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":24.8,"median":17.8,"min":0,"max":89,"stdev":20},"agent_readiness":{"mean":13.3,"median":2.2,"min":0,"max":67.3,"stdev":17.1},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":25,"strong":41,"developing":98,"thin":95,"emerging":175,"minimal":211},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":58.7,"n":645},"contract_quality":{"mean":18.5,"n":645},"contract_governance":{"mean":6.8,"n":645},"operational_transparency":{"mean":16.2,"n":645},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":25.6,"n":645},"access_clarity":{"mean":28,"n":645}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":20,"mcp_first_party_pct":18,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":14,"security_pct":100,"arazzo_pct":4,"rules_pct":14}}},"b":{"kind":"vc","slug":"insight-partners","name":"Insight Partners","members":755,"stats":{"kind":"vc","slug":"insight-partners","name":"Insight Partners","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":764,"resolved_members":755,"scored_members":689,"agent_scored_members":689,"scored_share_pct":91,"unexamined_members":63,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":77.6,"median_artifact_dirs":8,"n":689,"thinly_covered":614,"thinly_covered_of":689,"thin_coverage_note":"614 of 689 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":26.5,"median":20.9,"min":0,"max":89,"stdev":20},"agent_readiness":{"mean":13.8,"median":2.5,"min":0,"max":65.8,"stdev":17.6},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":25,"strong":49,"developing":116,"thin":103,"emerging":187,"minimal":209},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":59.9,"n":689},"contract_quality":{"mean":19,"n":689},"contract_governance":{"mean":7.8,"n":689},"operational_transparency":{"mean":17.5,"n":689},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":27.9,"n":689},"access_clarity":{"mean":30.3,"n":689}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":20,"mcp_first_party_pct":19,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":15,"security_pct":99,"arazzo_pct":3,"rules_pct":15}}},"comparable":true,"delta":{"kin_score_mean":-1.7,"kin_score_median":-3.1,"agent_readiness_mean":-0.5,"facets":{"discoverability":-1.2,"contract_quality":-0.5,"contract_governance":-1,"operational_transparency":-1.3,"developer_ergonomics":-2.3,"access_clarity":-2.3},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":0,"mcp_first_party_pct":-1,"mcp_note":null,"skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":-1,"security_pct":1,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":-1},"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":0.1,"median_artifact_dirs":0}},"depth_confounded":false}

Result read 2026-10-27. Accel and Insight Partners each have their own page with the full roster and leaderboard.

Run this comparison yourself

Everything above came from one call to compare_cohorts. Swap in any two tags, industries, regions, areas or VC portfolios and you get the same answer for your own shortlist. It is an Understanding tool, included in the Understanding and Influence plans, or pay per call.

From any MCP client connected to https://apis.io/mcp:
{"name": "compare_cohorts", "arguments": {"a": "vc:accel", "b": "vc:insight-partners"}}
Over the REST API:
curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/cohorts/compare?a=vc:accel&b=vc:insight-partners" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIS_IO_KEY"
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