Global software investor Insight Partners is seeing niche businesses emerge at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human talent in India after deploying more than $1 billion in the country, making it one of its largest geographies outside the US and Europe.
“India is one of Insight's largest markets outside the US and Europe (in terms of deployment). We have also invested in other Asian countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and Japan,” Apoorva Goyal, a principal investor at the firm, told Mint in an interview.
AI meets talent
The new wave of companies is bringing these capabilities together in innovative ways to solve problems with an outcome-led approach, he said, adding that there is an opportunity to combine them to serve different sectors in increasingly sophisticated ways.
“While there are ongoing debates around India’s right to win, software consolidation and the role of IP-led businesses, I think the next phase of the journey will look quite different,” Goyal said, citing portfolio companies such as Attentive.ai.
Attentive.ai is an AI-powered software platform that automates property measurements, takeoffs and bid management workflows for the construction, landscaping and field services industries.
Goyal noted that segments like revenue cycle management or any sector dominated by back-office workflows are likely to see significant waves of AI-driven automation. In construction, for instance, AI can be applied to areas such as take-offs, design planning and 3D architecture, he said.
“The same is true for insurance brokerages, healthcare, education, real estate and financial services, where many processes are back-office heavy and could be transformed by AI,” he said, addressing the opportunity to build and transform businesses in the country.
India’s ecosystem is also maturing, with more second- and even third-time founders coming through. They have the experience and muscle memory from their previous journeys and are now returning to build the next wave of businesses and capitalize on new opportunities, Goyal said.
He believes that India is one of the few ecosystems that has all the right ingredients: a mature venture ecosystem, significant international and domestic capital, and a growing pool of experienced operators.
"People who started at the bottom are now moving through the ecosystem and taking on CXO roles. The market has really come a long way on that journey,” he explained.
Global ambition
In January 2025, Insight Partners closed its thirteenth flagship fund with a dedicated buyout co-invest fund alongside the closing of its structured equity fund, Opportunities Fund II, amounting to $12.5 billion in capital to deploy in leading software companies across the globe to support growth at any stage.
The firm is largely stage-agnostic but has invested at the early stages in India with flexibility on ticket size. Beyond capital, the investment firm helps portfolio companies accelerate growth through access to global markets and enterprise networks, operational know-how, and support on areas such as go-to-market strategy, talent and product. This includes helping companies break into US and European enterprise markets.
Goyal further pointed to a shift in how software companies are building for the market. While companies over the past decade have largely built for global markets, an increasing number of strong businesses are now being built for the Indian enterprise market.
“We see this as an important additional growth vector, with many of these companies having the potential to become market leaders.”
“The quality of founders in India, particularly in product, B2B software and AI, has never been higher. Founders today understand their markets deeply and are building businesses with strong fundamentals, including recurring revenues, defensible positions and the ambition and capability to scale globally. That is the lens we apply for our investments as well,” Goyal said.
Exit pathways
While Insight’s India portfolio is still relatively young and early for most exits, the firm expects public markets to be a dominant route for liquidity, followed by secondary transactions to private equity firms and strategic players in India. Globally, the investment firm has seen large exits through all these routes.
“The recent tech listings have indicated that India has become a very viable option for a lot of companies in the US-India corridor and exit avenues have also improved over the last few years. It is one of the regions where I feel a local listing is a very viable option for tech and software companies,” Goyal said.
The global investment firm has about $90 billion in assets under management as of December 2025. It has invested in over 900 companies worldwide including the likes of Anthropic and Open AI and has seen over 55 portfolio companies tap the public markets.