{"id":4043,"date":"2025-12-16T05:11:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2025-12-16T05:11:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:11:57","slug":"lightspeed-raises-record-9b-in-fresh-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4043","title":{"rendered":"Lightspeed raises record $9B in fresh capital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a surge of VC investments from the 2021 bubble failed to <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/11\/18\/our-funds-are-20-years-old-a-look-inside-the-liquidity-crisis-reshaping-venture-capital\/\">yield strong returns<\/a> from many venture firms, limited partners, such as endowments, pension plans, and sovereign wealth funds began to funnel a <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchbook.com\/news\/articles\/us-venture-capital-firm-concentration-first-half-2025-founders-fund\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">greater share<\/a> of their capital into a select group of established firms with proven track records.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The latest huge capital haul has come to Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 25-year-old venture firm announced Monday that it raised a total of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20251215319417\/en\/Lightspeed-Closes-Over-%249B-in-New-Funds-Aimed-at-Backing-Category-Definers-Worldwide\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">$9 billion<\/a> in fresh funds, the largest fundraise in firm\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At a time when very few companies have managed to IPO, Lightspeed was an early investor in <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/04\/25\/rubriks-shares-climb-20-in-its-public-debut\/\">Rubrik<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/09\/08\/netskope-follows-rubrik-as-a-rare-cybersecurity-ipo-both-backed-lightspeed\/\">Netskope<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/10\/30\/navan-ipo-tumbles-20-after-historic-debut-under-sec-shutdown-workaround\/\">Navan<\/a>, all of which have recently made their public market debuts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The firm has also positioned itself as a predominantly AI-focused investor. Lightspeed claims to have backed 165 AI-native companies, including Anthropic, xAI, Databricks, Mistral, Glean, Abridge, and Skild AI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Armed with its giant new fund, the firm can continue to make massive investments into capital-intensive AI companies. For instance, Lightspeed reportedly wrote a $1 billion check to Anthropic when it co-led the LLM-maker\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/09\/02\/anthropic-raises-13b-series-f-at-183b-valuation\/\">$13 billion<\/a> investment in September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lightspeed\u2019s new capital is spread across six funds, including a $3.3 billion opportunity fund dedicated to follow-on investments in its fastest-growing portfolio companies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other large VC firms that have recently raised enormous capital pools include Founders Fund, which earlier this year amassed <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/04\/15\/founders-funds-new-4-6b-fund-indicates-an-era-of-big-vc-spending\/\">$4.6 billion<\/a> for a growth fund, as well as General Catalyst\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/10\/24\/general-catalyst-raises-8b-in-fresh-funds-to-back-startups-globally\/\">$8 billion<\/a> capital haul and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/podcast\/andreessen-horowitzs-7-2b-new-funds-for-a-new-era\/\">Andreessen Horowitz\u2019s $7.2 billion<\/a>, both secured in 2024.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, younger and smaller VC firms <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/11\/18\/our-funds-are-20-years-old-a-look-inside-the-liquidity-crisis-reshaping-venture-capital\/\">are struggling<\/a> to attract fresh funds. According to PitchBook data, 2025 is on pace to record the fewest VC fund closings in the past 10 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/12\/15\/lightspeed-raises-record-9b-in-fresh-capital\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a surge of VC investment&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[249],"tags":[329,3913,3914],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}