Lightspeed closes second India fund at $175m

Lightspeed India Partners’ second fund will follow largely the same strategy as its first vehicle, which closed in 2015 at $135 million, Lightspeed India managing director Bejul Somaia told AVCJ. The firm aims to invest in 25-30 start-ups, primarily at the Series A stage and earlier, with investments at Series B and C stages considered on an opportunistic basis.

Most of the LPs in the second fund are returning from the first vehicle, but the LP base also includes investors that have previously had little exposure to India. Somaia attributed the investors' newfound interest in India to a growing diversity of technology entrepreneurs in the country.

“Five years ago the opportunity set for venture investors in India was largely dominated by consumer e-commerce. Today that’s just one of many themes,” Somaia said. “There is content and media, education technology, logistics technology, and fintech, along with a lot of B2B [business to business] commerce and other enterprise SaaS businesses, and I think increasingly we are going to see technology find its way into every industry segment.”

Lightspeed was an early backer of several well-known Indian technology start-ups, including B2B e-commerce firm Udaan, for which it led a $10 million Series A round in 2016 and backed a $50 million Series B round this year. The firm is also an investor in online hospitality platform Oyo and energy trading platform India Energy Exchange, which it part exited in the company’s IPO last year.

Along with India, Lightspeed has offices in the US, Israel, and China. The China office is currently invsting its third US dollar-denominated fund, which closed at $260 million in 2016, along with its first renminbi-denominated fund, which closed at RMB600 million ($87 million) last year.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Early-stage
• Technology
• India
• Lightspeed Venture Partners
• TMT