Lightspeed Venture Partners

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise technology, consumer, and health sectors. Over the past two decades, the firm has backed companies such as Snapchat, Affirm, MuleSoft, and AppDynamics.

Lightspeed Venture Partners
Founded2000
FounderChris Schaepe
Barry Eggers
Ravi Mhatre
Peter Nieh
HeadquartersMenlo Park, California, United States
Websitewww.lsvp.com

The company invests in the U.S. and abroad, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

History

The firm was founded in October 2000 by Barry Eggers, Ravi Mhatre, Peter Nieh, and Chris Schaepe. All four were formerly a part of the investment firm Weiss, Peck & Greer and left to start Lightspeed following the sale of the investment management business to Robeco.

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.[1]

In March 2016, the company raised two new funds totaling in $1.2 billion.[2]

Snapchat raised $485,000 in its seed round and an undisclosed amount of bridge funding from Lightspeed Ventures in 2012.[3] Beyond the two Snap founders, the two biggest shareholders for the planned early 2017 Snap IPO were Benchmark and Lightspeed Venture Partners, both prior Snap investors and venture-capital firms from Silicon Valley. They held a combined stake of about 20%.[4]

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.[5]

In September 2020, Lightspeed Venture Partners launched its Southeast Asia operations with a new regional headquarters in Singapore.[6] During 2020 the firm led the investment in Israeli Secure Access Service Edge company Cato Networks, making it to be valued at around a billion dollars.[7]

In November 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that Lightspeed Venture Partners is a major investor in Chinese semiconductor firms, raising U.S. national security concerns.[8]

Significant investments
  • Cato Networks

Lightspeed Scout Program

The Lightspeed Scout Program brings together exceptional entrepreneurs, future investors, and operators, to advance their skills and track record as early-stage investors. Lightspeed supports Scouts with capital, programming, and community. Scouts work with Lightspeed Partners and their fellow Scouts to invest in aspiring entrepreneurs in their network and build their personal investment strategy. The 2020 Lightspeed Scout Program brought together people from black, Latino, indigenous, and Pacific Islander communities to receive support and capital as they join the venture industry. The firm's aspiration is that the Scout Program's renewed focus and commitment to representation will inspire the future leaders of venture.

References
  1. "Business Insider: How to Remain King of the World amidst Titanic Disruptions". Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  2. Loizos, Connie. "Lightspeed Venture Partners Raises $1.2 Billion". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  3. 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.
  4. 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
  5. Konrad, Alex. "VC Firm Lightspeed Raises $4 Billion In Startup Landscape Shaken By COVID-19". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  6. "Lightspeed announces the launch of its Southeast Asia operations". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  7. "Shlomo Kramer's Cato Networks completes $130 million funding round". calcalistech.com/. 17 November 2020.
  8. O’Keeffe, Kate; Somerville, Heather; Jie, Yang (2021-11-12). "U.S. Companies Aid China's Bid for Chip Dominance Despite Security Concerns". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  15. Sandilya, Sanu (2017-04-06). "Home rental startup FastFox gets Rs 30 crore from Lightspeed, 2 others". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  16. "India Dealbook: FastFox gets $4.6m from Lightspeed, others; DataWeave fundraise - DealStreetAsia". www.dealstreetasia.com. Retrieved 2017-06-23.
  21. "VMware Buys Nicira For $1.26 Billion And Gives More Clues About Cloud Strategy". Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  23. "Outschool Raises $45M in Series B Funding". 18 September 2020.
  27. "Personio raises $125M on a $1.7B valuation for an HR platform targeting SMEs". TechCrunch. January 18, 2021.
  28. "Lightspeed Leads Seed Funding In Spacetech Startup Pixxel". 19 August 2020. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
  29. TAKAHASHI, Dean (July 27, 2010). "Disney buys social game firm Playdom for up to $763.2M". VentureBeat.
  31. "Pliant Technology Receives $8 Million in Series A Funding". Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  37. "Who Wins in the Solazyme IPO?". 27 May 2011. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
  40. http://www.sebi.gov.in/sebi_data/attachdocs/jun-2017/1497957899070.pdf
  41. "Yellow Messenger raises $20 million Series B from Lightspeed Venture Partners". The Economic Times. 2020-04-16. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  42. "Yugabyte Closes $188 Million Series C Funding Round Bringing Valuation to Over $1.3B". www.businesswire.com. 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
  44. "XtremIO Adds Lightspeed Venture Partners to Series B Funding for Scale-out Enterprise Flash Storage Array". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2014-10-27. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
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