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Lightspeed bets big on AI, India’s real edge is in applied innovation: Ravi Mhatre & Bejul Somaia
Lightspeed Venture Partners has doubled down on artificial intelligence bets, with nearly 60% of its India investments over the past year flowing into AI-native startups, partners Ravi Mhatre and Bejul Somaia told ET.
The Silicon Valley-headquartered venture capital firm is among the most aggressive AI backers globally, being a key shareholder in foundational model companies such as Anthropic, France’s Mistral and India’s Sarvam.
“The opportunity for AI in India is quite meaningful, but it’s going to look different from what we’ve seen elsewhere. While there’s a sovereign angle to models — and that’s why we’re in Sarvam — the real story here will be the diffusion of AI into the economy,” Somaia said on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026.
In December, Lightspeed closed its largest fundraise in its 25-year history — with a $9 billion corpus across six global vehicles. The India dedicated fund for Lightspeed is yet to be finalised as it will be raised separately.
Over the past couple of years, the firm has backed more than 165 AI-native startups worldwide, deploying $5.5 billion, largely at early stages.
Its investment in Anthropic stood out as it led the AI company’s $3.5 billion financing last year – not common for a pure-play VC firm. Earlier this month, Anthropic closed a $30 billion round led by Singapore’s GIC and Coatue, valuing the company at $380 billion, roughly double the September valuation.
Also Read: ETtech Interview: Lightspeed’s Ravi Mhatre & Bejul Somaia on the AI bubble, India opportunity & more
Application layer for India
Somaia said much of India’s AI opportunity lies in customising applications for the country’s linguistic, regulatory and sectoral complexity. “If I look back at being here this time last year, it was really nothing. In the last 12 months, 60% of our investments have been in AI-native startups,” he said.
Besides Sarvam and vibe-coding startup Emergent, Lightspeed has backed Composio, which enables AI agents to plug into business apps such as Gmail, GitHub, Salesforce and Slack, and Portkey, which connects applications to multiple AI model providers through a single layer.
Mhatre said India’s structural complexity — spanning languages, accents, regulatory layers and voice-led internet usage — could make locally built AI applications more defensible than those in the US. While foundation models in mature markets are compressing application-layer advantages, India’s localisation needs in financial services, healthcare and education could create deeper moats.
“You can look at the model layer or the infrastructure layer, but India’s real advantage is in building and deploying applications at real-world scale,” Mhatre said.
Sarvam AI, an early Lightspeed bet, launched two large language models — 35 billion and 105 billion parameters — at the summit, targeting India-specific use cases through voice and other features.
While they are smaller than global frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, Lightspeed believes trust and alignment with digital public infrastructure could help drive their adoption locally.
Also Read: Major VCs line up top dollars for coordinated AI capital push in India
Consumer opportunity
Beyond AI, Lightspeed has backed consumer internet companies including Zepto, PhysicsWallah, Snabbit and Slikk. The firm remains bullish on quick commerce, citing its complex unit economics and operational intensity.
However, it plans to stay away from consumer brands. “We’re interested in businesses with real non-linearity in outcomes. More predictable models may deliver three to five times capital, but the upside is capped. Our focus is on asymmetric potential,” Somaia said.
He pointed to investments such as IEX, Oyo, Zetwerk and Pocket FM as examples where the effort was similar but the returns far more outsized.
Somaia, who set up Lightspeed’s India franchise in 2008, now oversees US operations alongside Mhatre.
Source: EconomicTimes
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