Insight Partners' Parekh explains why diversification beats all-in AI lab bets

At TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event in New York, Deven Parekh — who has co-run Insight Partners for 26 years — offered an unusually candid look at how the firm thinks about AI investing. Insight manages $90 billion in AUM and holds stakes in OpenAI and Anthropic, but has led or co-led multiple rounds in Databricks as well. Despite the industry's intense concentration into a handful of frontier labs, Parekh said Insight's strategy stays deliberately spread across early-stage, growth, and buyouts — with no fixed geographic or sector allocation. 'Look at our last seven funds and you'd see different percentages,' he said. On AI risk, Parekh dismissed alarm as overblown relative to the upside. Citing his board seat at NYU Langone, he noted that AI already analyzes 50 million patient records to flag patients — even those arriving for unrelated conditions — who have a 25% chance of a heart attack. He acknowledged biological-weapon risk from open-source models but said the probability of dramatic drug-development breakthroughs outweighs it. On the firm's low public profile, Parekh was direct: 'Every venture capitalist thinks they're an expert on everything now. Our attitude has been: let the portfolio do the talking.' He also acknowledged missing Legora, a buzzy AI legal-tech company, and discussed conflicts of interest in venture — topics rarely addressed openly by investors of his stature.