Via lsvp.com
The Silicon Valley VC firm is doubling down on frontier AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic with a dedicated co-investment fund.
Lightspeed Venture Partners has raised $600 million through a dedicated co-investment fund designed to deepen its stakes in the AI sector’s most prominent companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic. The fund, which closed in December 2025, is part of a broader fundraising push that saw the firm pull in over $9 billion across six different investment vehicles, its largest haul in 25 years.
Where the money is going #
The $600 million Co-Investment Fund I is specifically structured for follow-on investments in companies Lightspeed already believes in. The firm wants to extend its holdings in OpenAI and funnel fresh capital into Anthropic, the Claude-maker that has become one of the most sought-after names in generative AI.
Lightspeed’s relationship with Anthropic is already deep. The firm led Anthropic’s $3.5 billion Series E funding round in March 2025, making it the largest backer in that financing cycle. It also participated in Anthropic’s subsequent Series F round, a $13 billion raise.
Across its broader portfolio, Lightspeed has backed more than 165 AI-native companies and deployed over $5.5 billion into the sector.
The VC arms race for AI allocation #
Without dedicated follow-on capital, early investors get diluted as valuations balloon. Lightspeed’s $600 million fund exists to prevent exactly that scenario.
Firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Thrive Capital have all created similar structures to maintain their positions in AI’s most valuable companies. But the scale of Lightspeed’s total raise, $9 billion across six vehicles, puts it in a small club of firms that can credibly compete for allocation in rounds measured in the tens of billions.
What this means for the AI investment landscape #
OpenAI has moved aggressively into consumer and enterprise products. Anthropic has positioned Claude as an enterprise-first platform. Both are generating revenue at meaningful scale, but neither has demonstrated the kind of profitability that would justify their valuations by traditional metrics.
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