Wikipedia

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm focusing on seed stage, early stage investments and growth stage investments in the enterprise, fintech, consumer and healthcare sectors. Lightspeed has eleven offices globally and as of 2023 had approximately US$25 billion in assets under management .[1]

Lightspeed Venture Partners
Company typePrivate
Founded2000
Founder
  • Barry Eggers
  • Christopher Schaepe
  • Ravi Mhatre
  • Peter Nieh
HeadquartersMenlo Park, California, United States
Area served
Menlo Park, San Francisco, New York City, Tel-Aviv, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Singapore, London, Paris, Berlin
Key people
Bejul Somaia, Ravi Mhatre
ProductsVenture Capital
AUM$25 Billion
Websitelsvp.com

History

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Lightspeed was founded in 2000 by four enterprise founders who previously worked at Weiss, Peck & Greer and went to Stanford University together.

The firms early focus on enterprise technology was in stark contrast to the vast majority of venture capital funding which was focused on ecommerce and consumer investing.[2]

Lightspeeds early commitment to building its international presence began with its first international office in Tel-Aviv in 2006 following Yoni Cheifetz joining the firm.[3] This effort soon extended to India when Bejul Somaia joined the firm in 2008 to begin the firms India practice [4] and then in Singapore in 2022.[5] For the next decade, Lightspeed Venture Partners largely remained an enterprise software and infrastructure specialists.[1]

Investments

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Lightspeed led the Series A in Riverbed Technology in 2002 which went on to become one of the largest enterprise IPOs in 2006.[6]

Lightspeed led the Series B of Mulesoft in 2007 which went on to IPO in 2017[7] before less than a year later being acquired by Salesforce for $6.5 billion.[8]

Lightspeed led the Series A of Appdynamics in 2008 and on the eve of its expected IPO the company was acquired by Cisco for $3.7 billion in 2017.[9]

Lightspeed led the Series A of Nutanix in 2010 and the company went public in 2017 with the stock soaring more than 130% in its public debut.[10]

Lightspeed led the Series B of Nest in 2011 and it was later acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in an all cash transaction in 2014.[11]

Lightspeed led the Series C of Nicira in 2011 which was acquired by VMWare a year later for $1.2 billion.[12]

In 2012, Lightspeed became the first venture investor in Snap Inc., a year after Snapchat was launched.[13] Snapchat raised $485,000 in its seed round and an undisclosed amount of bridge funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners in 2012.[14] Lightspeed Venture Partners was the fourth largest shareholder during Snap's IPO in 2017.[15]

Lightspeed led the Series B in Affirm in 2013 and later went public in 2021 at nearly a $30 billion dollar market capitalization.[16]

Lightspeed led the Series C of Guardant Health in 2014 which went public in 2018.[17]

Lightspeed led the Series A of Rubrik in 2014 and is the largest shareholder in the company.[18] Rubrik was founded by Bipul Sinha, a Venture Partner at Lightspeed.[19]

Lightspeed seeded Forty Seven in 2015 and the company was later acquired by Gilead for $4.9 billion in 2020.[20]

Lightspeed is the seed investor in Navan,[21] the seed investor in Mistral,[22] the seed investor in Thoughtspot,[23] the seed investor in Ultima Genomics,[24] the seed of Orca Bio,[25] the Series A investor in Ai search company Glean Technologies,[26] the Series A investor in Grafana,[27] the series B of B2B marketplace Faire[28] and the Series C of Cato Networks.[29]

Funding

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In 2022, Lightspeed raised $7.1 billion[30] across four flagship funds including Lightspeed Venture Partners XIV-A/B, L.P. (“Fund XIV”) with $1.98 billion, Lightspeed Venture Partners Select V, L.P. (“Select Fund V”) with $2.26 billion, and Lightspeed Opportunity Fund II, L.P. (“Opportunity Fund II”) with $2.36 billion of committed capital. Separately, Lightspeed India Partners today announced the closing of a $500M early stage fund (“LSIP Fund IV”) as well as a partnership with blockchain firm, Lightspeed Faction.

In April 2020, Lightspeed Venture Partners raised $4.2 billion across three funds: $890 million for its latest early-stage venture fund, a $1.83 billion growth fund for later-stage investments, and a $1.5 billion opportunity fund for doubling down on winners in its international portfolio.[1]

In March 2016, the company raised two new funds totaling in $1.2 billion.[31]

In 2014, Lightspeed closed Lightspeed X, a $1 billion fund focused on the Enterprise, Consumer and Cleantech markets. As of 2012, the firm had $3 billion in committed capital.[32]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Alex Konrad (April 14, 2020). "VC Firm Lightspeed Raises $4 Billion In Startup Landscape Shaken By COVID-19". Forbes. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
  2. ^ "Venture capital hits new high - Feb. 14, 2000". money.cnn.com. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  3. ^ Vidra, Eze (2008-05-12). "Lightspeed Venture Partners Oversubscribes Its Eight Fund, Raised $800M". VC Cafe. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  4. ^ "India not for the fainthearted, but worth it: Lightspeed's Bejul Somaia after Sequoia's exit". The Economic Times. 2023-06-15. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  5. ^ citywire.com https://citywire.com/asia/news/multi-stage-vc-opens-singapore-office-with-plan-to-deploy-billions/a1402004. Retrieved 2024-03-23. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ Marshall, Matt (2006-09-22). "Shares of Riverbed soar 56.9 percent in IPO". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  7. ^ Taylor, Anita Balakrishnan,Harriet (2017-03-17). "Mulesoft IPO beats Snap in first-day trading". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-03-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Balakrishnan, Anita (2018-03-20). "Salesforce agrees to buy MuleSoft in $6.5 billion deal". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  9. ^ Roof, Katie (2017-01-25). "Why the $3.7 billion AppDynamics acquisition happened right before IPO". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  10. ^ Gurdus, Anita Balakrishnan,Lizzy (2016-09-30). "Tech unicorn Nutanix pops more than 130% at public debut". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-03-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ Tilley, Aaron. "Google Acquires Smart Thermostat Maker Nest For $3.2 Billion". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  12. ^ "VMware Buys Nicira For $1.26 Billion And Gives More Clues About Cloud Strategy". TechCrunch. 2012-07-23. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  13. ^ Benner, Katie (3 February 2017). "Who's Going to Be a Billionaire? The Biggest Winners of Snap's I.P.O." The New York Times.
  14. ^ Gallagher, Billy (October 29, 2012). "You Know What's Cool? A Billion Snapchats: App Sees Over 20 Million Photos Shared Per Day, Releases On Android". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 22, 2012.
  15. ^ Winkler, Rolfe (February 3, 2017), Snap IPO Will Mint Fortunes for Founders, Two Big Investors, New York City: Wall Street Journal, retrieved January 4, 2017
  16. ^ www.bloomberg.com https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-13/affirm-shares-almost-double-in-debut-after-1-2-billion-u-s-ipo. Retrieved 2024-03-23. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. ^ Daily, Investor's Business (2018-10-04). "Guardant Health IPO Raises $238 Million, Soars In First Trades". Investor's Business Daily. Retrieved 2024-03-23. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  18. ^ Dorbian, Iris (2015-03-24). "Rubrik pulls in $10 mln Series A". Venture Capital Journal. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  19. ^ "Bipul Sinha". Lightspeed Venture Partners. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  20. ^ "Gilead to Acquire Forty Seven for $4.9 Billion". www.gilead.com. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  21. ^ Stone, Madeline. "These 7 travel startups have raised millions in VC money during the depths of the pandemic, as investors bet on travel roaring back". Business Insider. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  22. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (2023-06-13). "France's Mistral AI blows in with a $113M seed round at a $260M valuation to take on OpenAI". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  23. ^ Rao, Leena (2014-02-05). "ThoughtSpot Raises $10.7M From Lightspeed To Offer Intelligent Search And Data Visualization To The Enterprise". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  24. ^ www.bizjournals.com https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2022/06/01/ultima-genomics-comes-out-of-stealth.html. Retrieved 2024-03-23. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  25. ^ app.dealroom.co https://app.dealroom.co/companies/orca_bio. Retrieved 2024-03-23. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. ^ Mhatre, Ravi (2024-02-27). "Glean is the AI-powered work assistant enterprises desperately need". Lightspeed Venture Partners. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  27. ^ "Grafana Labs Closes Series A". Grafana Labs. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  28. ^ Clark, Kate (2018-12-14). "VCs back wholesale marketplace Faire with $100M at a $535M valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  29. ^ "series c cato lightspeed - Google Search". www.google.com. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  30. ^ "Lightspeed Raises Over $7 Billion to Fund Early and Growth-Stage Entrepreneurs Around the Globe". www.businesswire.com. 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  31. ^ Loizos, Connie (9 March 2016). "Lightspeed Venture Partners Raises $1.2 Billion". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  32. ^ "Business Insider: How to Remain King of the World amidst Titanic Disruptions". Retrieved 2013-02-25.
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