Lightspeed targets $250M for new India fund, focusing on early-stage AI

Lightspeed is sharpening its India strategy around AI, targeting $250 million for a new early-stage fund as the venture firm bets the technology will drive the next wave of startups in one of the world’s largest markets.

The Silicon Valley venture firm is already a major investor in AI companies including Anthropic, xAI, and Databricks. In India, it has backed Sarvam AI, one of the country’s leading large language model developers and a startup selected by the Indian government to help develop sovereign AI models.

The new fund, Lightspeed India Partners V, will be half the size of its $500 million predecessor, which was raised in 2022 and has already committed 80% of its capital to startups, according to a letter sent to investors on Thursday and seen by TechCrunch.

In late April, Lightspeed disclosed the new fund in a U.S. regulatory filing, though the filing did not specify its target size. Indian media had previously reported that the firm was looking to raise between $300 million and $350 million for the vehicle.

Lightspeed plans to begin investing from the new fund within two months and has designed it around an investment period of roughly two and a half years, per the letter. Until then, it will continue making its final investments from the existing fund.