Venture capital firm Benchmark said it will not increase its investing pace despite the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) investing.

On Oct. 18, IT outlet TechCrunch reported that Benchmark's five partners said at TechCrunch Disrupt they would keep annual new investments at about 2 to 3 deals per partner.

Benchmark raised a total of $2 billion, about 2.67 trillion won, through two funds this summer. In its 31-year history, this is the second time it has raised funds at a larger scale than before. It said it does not plan to force an increase in the number of investments even if it expands fund size.

Benchmark partner Peter Fenton (피터 펜턴) explained that its core investment approach is to work closely with early founders for 10 to 15 years, and that is difficult to scale up. He added that the firm adjusted its core fund size, which it had kept at $500 million, about 667 billion won, for 20 years to reflect economic conditions. He said the newly raised $1.25 billion growth fund, about 1.67 trillion won, is meant to capture opportunities it missed by focusing on early-stage investments. He expected the growth fund to invest in 4 to 6 companies, or as many as 7 to 8.

On overheating AI investment and the possibility of a market correction, partners pointed to distorted information and excessive volatility rather than taking issue with negative outlooks themselves. Benchmark partner Ev Randall (에브 랜들) criticised a trend of interpreting AI company Character.AI's bankruptcy protection filing as a crisis for the entire industry. He said an acqui-hire deal was done in which founders and key personnel joined Google, and the company had already been sold for $2.3 billion, about 3.07 trillion won. He said interpreting the case only as a contraction in the AI industry shows a problem in the information environment.

Randall explained that performance expectations for OpenAI and Anthropic affect the share prices of related companies such as CoreWeave and Nebius. He said Benchmark's portfolio companies have sufficient demand from paying customers but have not secured the computing resources to handle it, and argued it is hard to see a fundamental problem in the AI ecosystem itself. He said market volatility is increasing as information that is untrue or exaggerated spreads. He said if OpenAI and Anthropic go public, the market's tendency to overreact to estimates posted by anonymous accounts could also ease.

Benchmark also puts more emphasis on collaboration among partners than on formality in investment decisions. Partners meet every Monday without a separate agenda to discuss market changes and investment opportunities. Benchmark partner Chethan Puttagunta (체탄 풋타군타) cited as an advantage that the five partners can flexibly support founders when they need help hiring executives or forming strategic partnerships.

It also rated San Francisco's competitiveness as still high. Benchmark partner Jack Altman (잭 알트먼) said founders do not necessarily have to be in San Francisco, but for now it is the most advantageous area for securing talent, capital and customers.

Benchmark said it does not deny the AI market's growth potential, but will continue selective investing and close cooperation with founders rather than being swept up in competition to expand investments.