Lightspeed launches funds totaling $ 7 billion, plus new blockchain investment
Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners has announced three US funds totaling $ 6.6 billion, plus a $ 500 million in India-based early-stage fund, bringing the company’s assets under management to $ 18 billion.
And it also announced Lightspeed Faction, an independent team focused on supporting early-stage blockchain infrastructure projects.
Lightspeed has partnered with Sam Harrison, co-founder of Blockchain.com’s venture arm (where he remains a venture partner), and Banafsheh Fathieh, a former Internet and blockchain investor with Prosus Ventures.
The two companies will operate as separate investors, but will share resources.
The company said the independent crypto-native team “is an experienced group of blockchain veterans working with Lightspeed’s global platform to meet exceptional founders wherever they live.”
Sam Harrison, managing partner, and Banafsheh Fathieh, general partner of Lightspeed Faction, said: “Blockchains have enabled new uses that we believe will replace notable older systems. Factions’ joint venture with Lightspeed connects a crypto-native team with the enterprise scaling experience to the Lightspeed platform. “
Lightspeed has raised around 60% more than it did in its last round of financing, which is seen as a vote of confidence in the company in the current market conditions
Funds for crypto companies are falling
According to research from PitchBook, funding for private crypto companies fell to its lowest annual level in the quarter from April to June.
Robert Le, a fintech analyst at PitchBook, told Bloomberg: “Although the crypto market began to decline in November, December, these agreements were already under discussion, so they closed in the first quarter.”
In the first quarter, 2022, crypto companies received a record $ 9.85 billion in financing compared to $ 6.76 billion in the second quarter.
“Everyone is very hesitant to close deals right now,” Le said.
However, the figures are an improvement compared to the investment figures for 2021.
According to Dove Metrics, total funding for May was $ 4.219 billion. While this figure was down 38.2% month-on-month against April investments of $ 6.829 billion, funding was up 97.8% from the previous year.
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