What makes Lightspeed’s strategy interesting is that it largely refused to participate in the record frenzy funding cycle of last year. Like most funds, Lightspeed hit the brakes during the initial months after the pandemic broke. Our belief is that today we have the opportunity to play much wider,” he added. “Another interesting factor that we increasingly see now is the quality of entrepreneurs who are choosing to launch their ventures. Now the Indian internet economy is much broader with so many new sectors and within those sectors, there is a ton of depth,” he said. “If you dial back 15 years when India internet 1.0 started, we saw the emergence of business-to-commerce marketplaces of digital goods such as MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow. The firm, which has a team of nine partners in India and Southeast Asia, is nearly doubling the size of its fund because it’s seeing more opportunities in the regions as a young crop of startups attempt to solve deeper and newer problems, said Rahul Taneja, a partner at Lightspeed, in an interview with TechCrunch. It began investing in the Southeast Asian market in the past decade and has backed several startups, including Ula, which has since been backed by Jeff Bezos, and ride-hailing giant Grab. Lightspeed began investing in India more than 10 years ago and has amassed an impressive portfolio of several fast-growing startups, including Byju’s (India’s most valuable startup), SaaS firm Innovaccer, e-commerce giant Udaan, social media giant ShareChat and payments giant Razorpay. Lightspeed additionally said Tuesday that it has raised more than $7 billion across several funds. The Tuesday announcement confirms TechCrunch’s April report, which said Lightspeed had initiated fundraising deliberations for the new India and Southeast Asia fund and was aiming to raise about $500 million. The fund, fourth for Lightspeed India, was hard-capped at $500 million, meaning the firm didn’t want to raise additional capital, said the firm, which unveiled its $275 million third India fund in 2020.

Lightspeed has raised $500 million for its newest India and Southeast Asia fund, its largest for the regions, as it looks to make deeper investments in the South Asian market that is increasingly attracting global investors.

Lightspeed india partners