California based early-stage venture firm, Lightspeed Venture Partners has raised over $1.2 billion to invest in consumer and enterprise tech startups. The cash comes from two separate funds including a $715 million round which is the Silicon Valley-based firm’s eleventh flagship fund focused on early-stage opportunities and $500 million for its second “Select” fund for later-stage companies.
This new funding round comes two years after the company saw its previous round which valued it almost a billion dollars. This included 650 million for its tenth fund and $350 million for its first “Select” pool.
The company has invested in many major startups in its 16 active years including “unicorns” Snapchat, Nutanix and The Honest Company. Most of its activities are US-centric but it also has outposts in China, India and Israel.
Following this investment round, Lightspeed Venture Partners will be seeing a few changes in its key personnel. The most notable new partners include Aaron Batalion (ex-Living Social), Sudip Chakrabarti (ex-Andreessen Horowitz), Ajay Sudan (ex-Palantir) and Alex Taussig (ex-Highland Capital Partners).
Founded in 2000 by Chris Schaepe, Barry Eggers, Ravi Mhatre and Peter Nieh, Lightspeed Venture Partners has backed more than 200 companies till date.
