Lightspeed has raised $500 million for its latest India and Southeast Asia fund, its largest for the areas, because it appears to be like to make deeper investments within the South Asian market that’s more and more attracting world traders.
The fund, fourth for Lightspeed India, was hard-capped at $500 million, which means the agency didn’t wish to increase extra capital, stated the agency, which unveiled its $275 million third India fund in 2020.
The Tuesday announcement confirms TechCrunch’s April report, which stated Lightspeed had initiated fundraising deliberations for the brand new India and Southeast Asia fund and was aiming to boost about $500 million.
Lightspeed moreover stated Tuesday that it has raised over $7 billion throughout a number of funds, together with India and Southeast’s.
Lightspeed started investing in India over 10 years in the past and has amassed a formidable portfolio of a number of fast-growing startups together with Byju’s, India’s Most worthy startup, SaaS agency Innovaccer, e-commerce big Udaan, social media big ShareChat and funds big Razorpay.
It started investing within the Southeast Asian market up to now decade and has backed a number of startups together with Ula, which has since been backed by Jeff Bezos, and ride-hailing big Seize.
The agency, which has a crew of 9 companions in India and Southeast Asia, is almost doubling the scale of its fund as a result of it’s seeing extra alternatives within the areas as a younger crop of startups try to unravel deeper and newer issues, stated Rahul Taneja, a accomplice at Lightspeed, in an interview with TechCrunch.
“In the event you dial again 15 years when India web 1.0 began, we noticed the emergence of business-to-commerce marketplaces of digital items corresponding to MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow. Now the Indian web economic system is way broader with so many new sectors and inside these sectors, there’s a ton of depth,” he stated.
“One other fascinating issue that we more and more see now’s the standard of entrepreneurs who’re selecting to launch their ventures. Our perception is that in the present day now we have the chance to play a lot wider,” he added.
Like most funds, Lightspeed hit the brakes through the preliminary months after the pandemic broke. What makes Lightspeed’s technique fascinating is that it largely refused to take part within the file frenzy funding cycle of final yr.
“Lightspeed has been extremely selective in regards to the startups we again,” stated Hemant Mohapatra, a accomplice at Lightspeed, in an interview with TechCrunch. “We by no means wish to be on the lists of funds that do essentially the most variety of offers.”
“Final yr, we had been seeing very high-momentum weekend offers with very, very excessive valuations. I’ll say for essentially the most half, these offers didn’t meet our bar and we ended up passing on these corporations. Our deployment tempo in comparison with the market over the last yr and a half was slower,” he stated.
Lightspeed has remained in step with its strategy and pace of deal actions and continues to be investing on the identical tempo as final yr — which in comparison with the market situations now — is quicker, stated Mohapatra, who beforehand labored at AMD, Google and Andreessen Horowitz.
“It’s an space of deliberate selection for us. Repeatedly over the previous couple of years, now we have had discussions about whether or not we should always make any adjustments to our technique across the tempo of investments and the type of corporations we’re supporting,” stated Taneja. “I believe now we have been pretty level-headed and in hindsight that appears nice.”
“If we’re enthusiastic about 10 corporations, we are going to put money into all ten of these. If we’re not enthusiastic about any of them, we is not going to make any funding,” he added.
Lightspeed will proceed to deal with areas corresponding to client web, SaaS, fintech and edtech, the 2 companions stated, including that the agency can be more and more evaluating newer alternatives in extra sectors corresponding to climate-tech, cross-border funds and web3. Lightspeed India has invested in 9 web3 startups within the final one yr.
It’s additionally stage-agnostic about funding alternatives. Taneja stated Lightspeed India works carefully with different arms of the agency and every time wanted, the worldwide fund delivers the large checks as now we have seen within the instances of Udaan and Razorpay.
The world’s second most populous nation has attracted scores of high-profile traders up to now 12 years. Sequoia and Accel, each of which have additionally been investing within the South Asian marketplace for over 10 years, introduced new funds just lately.
SoftBank, Alpha Wave World and Tiger World have additionally elevated the tempo of their investments in India in recent times. SoftBank invested over $3 billion in India final yr alone. Tiger World has invested $6.5 billion within the nation thus far, TechCrunch reported Monday.
