Lightspeed Venture Partners Closes Fund VIII At $800 Million
Lightspeed Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm, has closed Light Speed Venture Partners VIII with $800 million of limited partner commitments. This is much above the firm’s target of $675 million. This closing brings Lightspeed’s total funds under management to over $2 billion.
The new fund will look to invest in “industry-leading companies in India, China, Israel and the US”, according to a statement. Srini Vudayagiri (right), Managing Director, Lighspeed Venture Partners, told VC Circle that the “India allocation would be flexible and opportunistic”. He said that Lightspeed has an expanded focus towards India which would mean the fund would look at investing not only in pure ventures (startups) but also in growth and late stage companies including non-tech.
Lightspeed has earlier co-invested $10 million as series B funding in Four Interactive which runs a local information engine, Ask Laila. Besides, it has also invested in Mercantila, an e-commerce site to shop specialty products, and Tutorvista, an online tutoring and test preparation business.
