Lightspeed raises $500 million corpus to fund early-stage startups in India, SE Asia

Venture capital firm Lightspeed has raised a $500 million corpus to fund early-stage startups in the India and Southeast Asia region, as part of a larger $7 billion fundraise to invest in technology companies across geographies.

“The closing of Lightspeed India IV at its $500 million hard-cap reflects the firm's deepening commitment to the India and South East Asia region, since our first India investment in 2007,” the company said. 

Lightspeed boasts a stellar portfolio in the country, including the likes of Indian Energy Exchange, Oyo, Byju’s, Grab, Acko, Razorpay, Udaan, Sharechat and Innovaccer. Over the past five years, the firm's presence has expanded to 28 professionals across four locations -- Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Singapore.

“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,” the company said.

It also announced that Bejul Somaia, a partner at the firm’s India arm, has been promoted to a global role, in addition to his existing roles advising on investments in India, Southeast Asia and Europe. 

“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,” said Somaia.

 “By intentionally constructing cross-border deal teams, we're able to offer founders local market knowledge and relationships, together with deep sector domain knowledge. In doing so, we're all exposed to, and are learning from, the innovation that is happening across the world in order to better serve our founders,” he added.