Lightspeed is a global, multi-stage venture firm that makes 'depth' its center of gravity: it develops deep, months-long theses in a domain and then backs founders with 'unwavering conviction.' Its current center of gravity is AI, where it believes 'the biggest value from AI's development will be unlocked at the frontier' and that 'intelligence is the product.' It looks for founders who combine deep domain expertise with native AI/product-building ability, and it leads, co-leads or follows on across early, growth and opportunity stages worldwide.
A concrete, persistent problem that has resisted prior solutions for structural reasons (e.g., it's a reasoning problem, not a rules problem), framed with the status quo's pain quantified.
“The core workflow of audit has resisted automation for decades because it is fundamentally a reasoning problem, not a rules problem.” — Audit's Moment Has Arrived. Why We Invested in Andera.
“The status quo was alarming: approximately 75% of procurement teams don't use any software tools for sourcing.” — Anoushka Vaswani / Arif Janmohamed
“Malicious agents are crawling environments at all times today, not only finding the high-severity vulnerabilities but chaining vulns of all kinds into real-world attack paths and automating exploitation.” — Guru Chahal / Tal Morgenstern
A solution architected natively for the new paradigm rather than retrofitted, with original IP, proprietary data or domain depth — and product thinking that goes beyond surfacing theoretical issues to closing the loop.
“You can't win this market by retrofitting consumer search engines. We believe you win it by building search from the ground up for how AI actually works.” — Tripling Down on Exa to build the Search Engine for AI
“Many early applications don't contain a lot of original IP; without access to proprietary data or deep domain experience, these ventures are akin to constructing a building on a foundation of quicksand.” — Lisa Han / Nnamdi Iregbulem
“Their platform focuses on validated exploitability and closes the loop by providing continuous remediation guidance to eliminate real-world exploit paths before attackers can use them.” — Guru Chahal / Tal Morgenstern
“At this stage, apps aimed at specific vertical markets have an edge over generalized multi-modal AI models.” — Lisa Han
A market where the prize is genuinely large and worth winning — ideally one where AI expands the very definition of the market (e.g., 'knowledge and intelligence labor itself as its market'), and where geography is no constraint.
“stay focused on the size of the prize, and whether it was worth winning, rather than the details of what can get in the way.” — Lightspeed Team: Bejul Somaia
“The biggest value from AI's development will be unlocked at the frontier.” — Ravi Mhatre / Guru Chahal / Sebastian Duesterhoeft
“We believe the market for voice applications will grow by approximately fourfold, thanks to improvements in latency, tonality, and responsiveness driven by emerging AI architectures.” — Lisa Han
“We pursue opportunities based on their merits, regardless of where the Founder resides, because the future is global and so are we.” — The Global Opportunity Map
Evidence that customers feel real, quantified value — large spend processed, concrete savings, and adoption by the companies 'setting the pace' in the category.
“In 2024, LightsSource has processed over $1B in spend.” — Reinventing Direct Sourcing: Announcing Lightspeed's Investment in LightSource
“When we spoke to LightSource customers, we consistently heard about how LightSource saved them significant manual work and time, generated sizeable cost savings.” — Anoushka Vaswani / Arif Janmohamed
“Cursor, Cognition, HubSpot, Gamma, OpenRouter, and over 400,000 developers — the companies setting the pace in AI are all reaching for Exa first.” — Guru Chahal / Nnamdi Iregbulem
Founders who pair deep domain expertise with native ability to build with the new technology; who are mission-driven (clear answer to 'why are you doing this?'), willing to break convention, and who have compounded credibility through consistent execution over time.
“We believe the most promising startups — both today and tomorrow — will combine founders with deep domain expertise with engineers native to building gen AI solutions.” — AI Enterprise Market Map: Cutting through the hype
“The conviction we have in this team isn't the result of a few diligence calls. It has compounded over time, watching them build, make hard decisions, and consistently execute.” — Kat Zhang / Bucky Moore
“Why are you doing this?” — Bejul Somaia
“That clarity of conviction, paired with technical depth, developer-first instincts, and relentless hustle, is what makes them the team to do this.” — Guru Chahal / Nnamdi Iregbulem
A model that captures value the way the new technology actually gets used (e.g., serving agents that query orders of magnitude more than humans), aligned to enterprise ROI and large verticals.
“Agents already search orders of magnitude more than humans do, and that gap is widening fast.” — Tripling Down on Exa to build the Search Engine for AI
“Enterprise-grade applications with strong concentrations in large verticals like healthcare or finance will be able to gain more traction early.” — Lisa Han
“CFOs at publicly traded companies are demanding 200–300% efficiency gains from back-office functions.” — Kat Zhang / Bucky Moore
Defensibility through original IP, proprietary data, domain depth and superior product thinking — not a thin layer on a foundation model. Wariness of low-barrier categories crowded with trend-followers.
“The barriers to entry in the current gen AI space remain rather low, and it's starting to show.” — AI Enterprise Market Map: Cutting through the hype
“In particular, we expect strong product thinking and user-centricity will separate the true innovators from the trend followers.” — Lisa Han / Nnamdi Iregbulem
“You can't win this market by retrofitting consumer search engines. We believe you win it by building search from the ground up for how AI actually works.” — Guru Chahal / Nnamdi Iregbulem
A specific, recent convergence of technical capabilities (LLM reasoning, long context, agentic tool use) plus market pressure that opens a rare, time-limited entry window 'right now.'
“The convergence of large language model reasoning, long context windows, and agentic tool use has changed the calculus.” — Audit's Moment Has Arrived. Why We Invested in Andera.
“That window rarely exists for a new entrant, and it is open right now.” — Kat Zhang / Bucky Moore
“The proliferation of AI has armed even unsophisticated attackers with nation-state level capabilities.” — Guru Chahal / Tal Morgenstern
“Intelligence is the product and we are at the beginning stages of the journey.” — Ravi Mhatre / Guru Chahal / Sebastian Duesterhoeft
A focused pitch whose goal is to earn the next conversation, not to over-explain — lead with the big hooks and leave room for questions; resist explaining every detail.
“your intention in a first meeting is not to fully explain your business. Its just to get to a second meeting.” — How to make the most of your pitch to a VC
“try to keep your presentation to ten slides, and leave yourself fifteen minutes for questions” — Jeremy Liew
“focus on the big 'hooks' that will get an investor intrigued in what you're doing” — Jeremy Liew
“The biggest value from AI's development will be unlocked at the frontier.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You can't win this market by retrofitting consumer search engines. We believe you win it by building search from the ground up for how AI actually works.”