Lightspeed Venture Partners Raises $7B For Early- And Growth-Stage Investing

Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners has raised three new U.S. funds, and one fund focused on India, totaling more than $7 billion for early- and growth-stage funding.

Lightspeed’s three U.S.-focused funds came out to $6.6 billion, while Lightspeed India Partners closed a $500 million early-stage fund. With the new funds, Lightspeed’s total committed capital under management comes out to $18 billion, according to an announcement from the firm.

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Menlo Park-based Lightspeed Venture Partners last raised a fund with its $450 million Lightspeed China Partners V. Some of Lightspeed’s most recent investments include Vegrow, Soba and Zigazoo, according to Crunchbase.

“The new funds are representative of Lightspeed’s global vision to support exceptional entrepreneurs, in any geography, at any point in their entrepreneurial journey,” the firm said in a Medium post. “And we’ve raised this $7B+ with an eye towards what it means to be building the venture firm of the future.”

Fresh news amid overall funding slowdown

Lightspeed’s new fundraise announcement comes during an overall slowdown in venture investing. It’s a sharp contrast to 2021, which saw record levels of venture dollars invested globally.

Since Lightspeed was founded more than 20 years ago, the firm’s invested in more than 500 companies in the enterprise, consumer, fintech and health sectors, per the firm. Around a quarter of its portfolio companies have gone public or been acquired, with 33 companies going through an initial public offering.

Lightspeed Venture Partners has also had some notable exits over the years, including Snap, Affirm, MuleSoft and GrubHub.

Along with the new funds, Lightspeed announced the formation of Lightspeed Faction, a new team focused on crypto and blockchain technology.

Mini fund frenzy?

Lightspeed’s large fundraising announcement is one of many in the last few weeks. Even as funding to startups have slowed, investment firms have not slowed their pace of closing new funds.

In late June, CIBC Innovation Banking announced the launch of its $1.5 billion venture fund for startups across software, life sciences and cleantech, and Drive Capital announced two new funds totaling $1 billion.

Other firms have followed suit this month, such as San Francisco-based life sciences and health care investor Telegraph Hill Partners announcing the close of a new $525 million investment fund.

While startups may be facing a hard time raising money, venture and growth capital firms do not appear to be having the same problem.

Chris Metinko contributed to this report.