Insight Partners’ Devin Parekh explains why his $90B firm isn’t going all-in on any single AI bet

While the rest of the venture world scrambles to secure allocations in OpenAI and Anthropic, Insight Partners is playing a different game. Managing Director Deven Parekh laid out a strategy that looks almost contrarian by 2025 standards: deliberate diversification across the AI landscape rather than concentrated bets on a handful of foundation model companies.

The firm, which manages more than $90 billion in regulatory assets under management, isn’t ignoring the marquee names. Insight maintains late-stage co-investment exposure to both OpenAI and Anthropic. But Parekh’s broader thesis centers on a three-pronged approach that treats AI less like a single asset class and more like an operating system upgrade for the entire software industry.

The three-pronged playbook

Insight’s AI strategy breaks down into three distinct lanes. First, the firm is deploying AI internally to sharpen its own operations. Second, it’s actively helping its portfolio companies, numbering more than 900 to date, integrate AI into their products and workflows. Third, it’s making selective direct investments in AI-native companies, with a clear preference for vertical applications over horizontal model plays.

That last point is where things get interesting. Rather than chasing the next foundation model at a nosebleed valuation, Insight has gravitated toward companies applying AI to specific industry problems. The firm’s backing of Exiger, a supply chain risk management company undergoing an AI transformation, illustrates the approach.

Comfortable losing, comfortable holding rivals

Parekh was notably candid about one deal that got away. Legora, a legal AI startup, raised $80 million in a Series B co-led by General Catalyst in May 2025. The company went on to reach a $5.55 billion valuation after closing a $550 million Series D in March 2026. Insight wasn’t part of it.

Rather than treating that miss as a strategic failure, Parekh framed it as an inevitable byproduct of disciplined investing in an overheated market. Equally striking is Parekh’s comfort holding stakes in competing AI labs simultaneously. Insight’s portfolio-level thinking treats rival AI companies as complementary bets rather than contradictory ones.

Fresh capital, familiar discipline

Insight closed its Fund XIII at $12.5 billion in January 2025, pushing total AUM above the $90 billion mark. The firm’s investment philosophy has long blended venture-stage risk with buyout-style stability through what it calls “venture buyouts,” taking significant positions in mature software companies while maintaining exposure to earlier-stage growth. With over 55 portfolio IPOs under its belt, Insight has a track record of navigating technological transitions without abandoning the discipline that got it there.

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