While much of the venture capital world is funneling billions into a handful of frontier AI labs, at least one major firm is taking a longer, cooler look at the landscape. Insight Partners, which manages roughly $90 billion in assets under management, has quietly built stakes across OpenAI and Anthropic while simultaneously refusing to let either dominate its portfolio. In a candid conversation at a recent industry event in New York, Insight co-managing partner Devin Parekh laid out the thinking behind that discipline, and why he believes the current concentration trend carries real danger for the broader VC ecosystem.
The Case Against Going All-In on One AI Giant
OpenAI and Anthropic together absorbed roughly half of all venture capital dollars deployed in the first half of this year. Some funds are openly pitching limited partners on strategies where 35 to 40 percent of the entire fund sits in one of those two companies. Parekh does not find that compelling. His argument is straightforward: over a long horizon, diversification consistently outperforms concentration. Insight is currently on its thirteenth fund, which forces the firm to think across decades rather than quarters.
He acknowledges the tension. In the current moment, a fund weighted heavily toward Anthropic would likely show stronger short-term returns. But historical data across venture cycles does not support excessive concentration as a repeatable strategy. Most institutional limited partners do not want that kind of single-name exposure either. A few concentrated strategies have produced extraordinary outcomes, but they remain exceptions, not templates.
Going Earlier When Late-Stage Valuations Stop Making Sense
Parekh’s other major strategic observation concerns valuation velocity. Growth rounds are moving so quickly right now that investors are paying higher prices without receiving meaningfully more data than they had at the prior round. The risk-adjusted math simply does not work the way it traditionally has. His response has been to push capital earlier in the cycle, writing smaller initial checks and then doubling down aggressively on the companies that prove out.
The firm’s investment in Wiz illustrates the logic well. Insight wrote a Series A check and kept writing through subsequent rounds. The compounding effect of early entry with continued conviction produced returns far larger than a single late-stage position would have generated. The Armis deal tells a similar story from a different angle. Insight lost the initial round to a competitor, maintained the relationship with a modest follow-on check, and eventually bought out the entire cap table before a $7 billion acquisition by ServiceNow this year.
What This Means for Tech Buyers and Enterprise Adoption
For buyers evaluating enterprise software and AI platforms, the behavior of institutional capital is a useful signal. Diversified investment strategies tend to produce a broader range of well-funded, competitive products across categories like security, financial services software, and vertical AI tools. When firms like Insight actively seek out companies such as Ramp in fintech or Armis in cybersecurity, it accelerates product development and drives pricing competition. Consumers and enterprise buyers benefit most when capital does not collapse entirely around two or three dominant platforms. A diversified venture landscape means more genuine innovation reaching the market, which is ultimately what moves technology adoption forward.
