On Tuesday, Lightspeed Ventures reported raising $7.1 billion globally across early and growth stage vehicles. A total of $2.5 billion in funding will be spent in early-stage deals, out of which $500 million is dedicated for India.
Additionally, Lightspeed has promoted its partner Bejul Somaia, who assisted in establishing Lightspeed’s India operations in 2008, to its global executive team.
“In the early 2000s, Lightspeed started building a global footprint given our conviction that the future of technology and entrepreneurship would be global. Today, Lightspeed has 70 investors located across twelve cities globally.”
Bejul Somaia, Partner, Lightspeed
According to the company statement, the closing of Lightspeed India IV at its $500M hard-cap reflects the firm’s deepening commitment to the India and South East Asia region.
Investments undertaken by Lightspeed Ventures so far
Lightspeed Ventures is a multi-stage venture capital entity dedicated to driving disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer Industries. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage more than $10 billion on the global platform, with investment experts and advisers in India, Silicon Valley, Israel, China, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
For over twenty years, Lightspeed has been known as a pioneer in early-stage enterprise investing. It now has one of the largest teams in enterprise, investing at the forefront of infrastructure, cloud, security, AI, SaaS, and the future of work.
In addition to consumer technology, business-to-business (B2B) commerce, and enterprise, the firm aims to invest in cross-border commerce, mobility, artificial intelligence-based automation and devops, climate, and Web3.
Tracing the journey in India
Lightspeed has been investing in India for over 15 years, beginning with TutorVista Global Pvt. Ltd., an online education company. Through its subsidiary Lightspeed India Partners, it launched its first India-specific investment vehicle worth $135 million in 2015.
“We continue to witness the broadening and deepening of the opportunity in the region, led by world-class founders and an ever-expanding scope for technology to reshape the economy in India and Southeast Asia.”
Lightspeed made its first investment in India in 2007, and its portfolio includes unicorns such as Oyo, Udaan, BYJU’S, Razorpay, and ShareChat. The new fund will now invest more in early-stage firms. According to the VC firm, it has expanded to 28 professionals across four locations—Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, and Singapore in the last five years.