Lightspeed has raised an amount that is equal to $500 million, which is a huge success as well as a huge proud moment for the company.
It stated that it has raised this investment through a lot of hard work and for its newest Indian and Southeast Asian funds with the intention of investing more deeply in the South Asian market. Furthermore, it announced that it had reached more than $7 billion across several funds for its different kinds of projects.
Lightspeed has been investing in India for the last 10 years, and it has built an amazing reputation in the following years in comparison to its fast-growing competitors, Byjus, Saas firms, and other e-commerce firms. In addition, it has supported a number of startups, including Ula, with its hard work and innovation over the past few decades in the Southeast Asian market.
Rahul Taneja, the partner at Lightspeed, says that the firm in which we are working is a team of 9 partners, or we can say, a family of 9 partners in India and Southeast Asia. We nearly doubled the size of our funding because we are looking ahead to more opportunities as a startup and looking ahead to an attempt to solve deeper and newer problems. He further adds that if you look back 15 years ago, when the internet was just starting in India, you will find the emergence of business-to-consumer marketplaces for digital goods.
These marketplaces also include MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow. But as we see, at present, the Indian internet economy is much broader.
He says another interesting and inspiring factor that we can see is the change in the quality of entrepreneurs. We are increasingly finding a positive change in the way entrepreneurs choose to launch their ventures. Unlike any other business, lightspeed hits a brake during the pandemic of COVID-19, but what makes it stand is that it refuses to participate in the record frenzy funding cycle.
Hemant Mohapatra’s partner at Lightspeed says that the startup has been highly sensitive about the way we work in the past few years. Last year, due to the pandemic of COVID-19, we were seeing weekend releases with very very high valuations frequently. In that situation, we pass out those deals to other companies that do not meet our bar or criteria. If we compared our development last year, then it was quite slow as compared to our competitors, he further added.
Taneja, another partner at lightspeed, says that we have reached a deliberate area for us to choose among the available options. Over the past few years, there has been regular discussion about whether we should opt for any changes in our strategy related to investments and the companies that we are supporting. He went on to say, “I think we made the right decision at the time, and now we’re confidently heading toward success, and that looks great.” If we are sure that in the following or in the given 10 companies we have to invest in, then we will invest in all of those without thinking further. But if we are not sure about investing in any of them, then we will not make any decision related to investment.
At present, lightspeed works in the areas related to consumer internet, Saas, fitness, and edtech, but in the upcoming future, it is looking ahead to finding new opportunities in sectors other than these, such as climate change, cross-border payment, and web 3. To fulfill this vision, Lightspeed has invested in more than 6 web 3 startups in India in the last year.
