Lightspeed targets $250M for new India fund, focusing on early-stage AI
The Silicon Valley firm is aligning its India fundraising cycle with its global funds for the first time, as it shifts to a shorter investment period.
Lightspeed, the Silicon Valley venture firm, is planning to allocate $250 million for a new early-stage fund focusing on AI in India. This investment follows the firm's past successes in backing AI companies such as Anthropic, xAI, and Databricks. In India, Lightspeed has already invested in Sarvam AI, a leading large language model developer and a startup chosen by the Indian government to develop sovereign AI models.
The new fund, named Lightspeed India Partners V, will be half the size of its $500 million predecessor, which raised capital in 2022 and committed 80% of its funds to startups. The new fund will begin investments within two months and has a two and a half year investment period. Lightspeed is also aligning its India funds' fundraising cycle with its global funds for the first time.
The smaller size of this new fund allows Lightspeed to focus on individual deals and raise its next fund sooner. The fund's investment strategy is centered around AI, anticipating that it will generate more value in India than the internet did. India has yet to produce a major frontier AI model developer and has received less AI investment than China and the U.S., but it has a large pool of software developers and a long history as a hub for technology services.
Written by urgent.news from TechCrunch's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
