Nexthop AI Locks up $110M Led by Lightspeed

Artificial intelligence infrastructure provider Nexthop AI raised a massive $110 million round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The fresh round also included participation from Kleiner Perkins, WestBridge Capital, Battery Ventures and Emergent Ventures.

Nexthop AI builds custom networking solutions for the hyperscalers, including networking hardware designed to each customer’s specifications and a choice of a network operating system with the company’s own AI.

“Hyperscalers need the ecosystem to innovate with them to accelerate their infrastructure deployments,” said CEO Anshul Sadana. “Nexthop AI is a force-multiplier, as it partners with and works as an extension of the cloud companies’ engineering teams. This disruptive model enables cloud companies to build the most cost- and power-efficient AI solutions.”

Lightspeed speeds up

Lightspeed Venture Partners has been busy the last month-plus.

In February, the VC giant co-led satellite platform developer K2 Space’s $110 million Series B with Altimeter Capital. It also participated in a slew of big rounds, including autonomous surface vessels maker Saronic’s $600 million Series C, medical document startup Abridge’s $250 million round, and application security startup Semgrep’s $100 million Series D.

This month, it led Anthropic’s huge $3.5 billion funding round that valued the startup at $61.5 billion. Lightspeed also co-led Reflection.Ai’s $105 million Series A announced this month. Reflection AI is developing “superintelligence,” what it calls an AI system capable of performing most work that involves a computer.