Lightspeed Raises Record $9 Billion for AI Investments in Silicon Valley

Andreessen Horowitz Raised $7.2 Billion Last Year

Reuters Yonhap News

Venture capital (VC) firms in Silicon Valley are raising massive amounts of capital to invest in artificial intelligence (AI).

According to the New York Times on December 14 (local time), Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed Venture Partners announced that it has secured over $9 billion for investments in the AI sector. This marks the largest fundraising in Lightspeed's history.

This capital will be distributed across six funds. Of the total $9 billion, $3.3 billion will be allocated to AI investments, including companies such as Anthropic, xAI, and Mistral.

Lightspeed is a US-based global VC managing approximately 35 trillion won in assets. The catalyst for Lightspeed's aggressive push into AI investment was the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in 2022. At that time, Lightspeed's executives discussed the potential impact of AI technology and concluded that it represented a paradigm shift.

Since then, Lightspeed has decided to focus its investment strategy on AI. Its record $1 billion investment in Anthropic is part of this approach. Lightspeed's portfolio has grown by $7 billion this year alone.

Lightspeed believes that concerns over an AI bubble are exaggerated. Considering the revenue growth of Anthropic, innovations such as Waymo's autonomous vehicles, and Google's protein structure prediction tool AlphaFold, the company argues that the world is at a technological inflection point.

Ravi Mhatre, co-founder of Lightspeed, stated, "What we consider a bubble is when the balance between hype and substance is so distorted that it eventually leads to a sharp correction," adding, "Right now, we are in a period of substantial intrinsic value."

Other VC firms are also actively raising funds for AI investments. As of last year, Andreessen Horowitz raised $7.2 billion, and General Catalyst secured $8 billion. According to PitchBook, which tracks venture capital trends, the top 10 VC firms accounted for 43% of all VC fundraising this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.