Lightspeed Venture Partners

Six venture capital firms—Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Founders Fund, and General Catalyst—now raise more capital than all other U.S. venture firms combined, driven by AI startup demands, private company retention, and institutional investor preferences. These firms offer entrepreneurs resources like advisers and recruiting support but also impose high expectations for rapid scaling and large returns, prompting some founders to seek smaller, more flexible investors.

A New York-based autonomous offensive security startup raised $37 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Cyberstarts, and angels including Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport. The startup uses AI to simulate continuous cyberattacks, identifying vulnerabilities before real hackers exploit them, following Anthropic’s Mythos model revealing thousands of zero-day flaws.

Ocean, an email security platform, raised $28M in funding to fight AI phishing, founded by a researcher who previously worked on Iron Dome and was a teen hacker. The funding was provided by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Ocean aims to improve email security with its agentic platform.