Social commerce – Lightspeed expands into South East Asia

Lightspeed Venture Partners announced that the company will expand its operations by entering the SE Asian market

Lightspeed officially announced the opening of an office at its regional headquarters in Singapore.

The announcement by Lightspeed Ventures is the sixth global expansion after the USA, Europe, China, India and Israel.

Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners announced that the company will expand its operations by entering the Southeast Asian market.

Today we are announcing our expansion into Southeast Asia as we officially commence operations from Singapore. We look forward to working with courageous entrepreneurs and helping them build disruptive businesses, it states.

In April 2020, Lightspeed Venture announced the closing of $4.2 billion newly raised through three funds.

It is expected that Lightspeed Venture will invest a portion of these funds in the Southeast Asian market.

Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing economies and start-up ecosystems in the world, and this is due in no small part to the region’s exceptional entrepreneurial talent. We believe that the start-up ecosystem will continue to expand significantly and look forward to working with entrepreneurs to build and scale groundbreaking companies, said Akshay Bhushan, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The venture capital firm has several existing investments in the region. The list consists of – Chilibeli, a social commerce platform; Grab, a regional super app; NS8, a provider of mapping and AI-based services; Shipper, a fulfilment and shipping company; Ulla, a marketplace app.

Lightspeed could be the second major league venture capital fund after Sequoia to establish an office in Southeast Asia.

In July 2020, Sequoia Capital India announced that it had raised $1.35 billion from limited partners for investments in India and Southeast Asia. The two new funds were a $825 million growth fund and a $525 million venture fund.

We are deeply grateful to the LPs of Sequoia who provided $1.35B for two new Sequoia India venture and growth funds. The #Startup ecosystem of the region is at a fork in the road. We believe that there is an opportunity to make different decisions for the future, it states.