Lightspeed gears up for new India-Southeast Asia fund, may raise $500 mn
The new fund this year coincides with an aggressive global fundraising push as Lightspeed raised over $9 billion across six new global funds.
Lightspeed India Partners, an early backer of firms such as Oyo and Razorpay, plans to raise its next India and Southeast Asia-focused fund in 2026, even as its initial public offering (IPO) exit pipeline begins to open up, two people with direct knowledge of the development told Mint.
Portfolio companies including Oyo, Zepto, Zetwerk, Udaan and Acko are in various stages of preparing to go public, creating a potential liquidity pipeline for the venture capital firm. Lightspeed is also a backer of Physics Wallah, but did not sell any stake in its recent IPO, as investors increasingly cut back on offer-for-sale components.
The Silicon Valley-headquartered firm had raised $500 million to invest in startups across India and South-East Asia in 2022, its fourth and largest such fund so far. “The new fund is expected to be in a similar range. Fundraising will begin in the third or fourth quarter of this year (2026)," said one of the people quoted above.
Lightspeed declined to comment on Mint's emailed queries.
So far, Lightspeed has raised four dedicated early-stage funds focused on India and South-East Asia, with the proposed vehicle expected to be its fifth. The firm has steadily scaled up these funds over the years, raising $135 million in Fund I, $180 million in Fund II, and $275 million in Fund III in 2020.
The firm is still deploying capital from its fourth fund, and the new one could take another couple of years to close.
Unlike earlier cycles, when Lightspeed returned to the market every two to three years, it is approaching its next India and South-East Asia-focused fund after a longer pause amid a slower deployment cycle post the 2021 startup funding boom.
In a November interview with The Economic Times, Lightspeed’s global lead Bejul Somaia had said the firm could even evaluate a smaller fund size of about $250–300 million for its next vehicle.
The timing of the new fund this year also coincides with an aggressive global fundraising push. Lightspeed had in December 2025 announced it had raised over $9 billion across six new global funds, taking total assets under management to over $40 billion.
To date, Lightspeed has backed over 165 artificial intelligence (AI)-native companies and invested more than $5.5 billion in the space including Anthropic, Glean, Rubrik, and Databricks, among others.
“While in India it continues to be a sector-agnostic investor, it is likely to make more investments in AI, deeptech and quick commerce, among other areas," said a second person in the know, referring to the firm’s India and South-East Asia strategy. Lightspeed has backed e-commerce and quick commerce startups such as Zepto, Snabbit, Limeroad and Slikk in India.
The fundraising push comes amid a broader revival in India-focused venture capital. Last year, firms such as Nexus Venture Partners, A91 Partners and Accel India raised new funds with a corpus of over $600 million. Others including Bessemer, Fireside Ventures, Blume Ventures and Chiratae Ventures have also closed new funds.
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