Lightspeed seeks $600M to boost stakes in OpenAI and Anthropic
Tech Funding News Abhinaya Prabhu
Lightspeed is raising about $600M to keep bigger stakes in OpenAI and other AI bets. It’s also adding Anthropic, which has already topped OpenAI in value.
Based on reporting by Tech Funding News, Abhinaya Prabhu — read the original for the full story.
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Lightspeed Venture Partners is trying to stay attached to its best AI bets for longer. The firm is seeking about $600 million in a secondary deal that would extend its positions in OpenAI and four other portfolio companies, while adding a new commitment to Anthropic, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Internally, the plan is called Project Mercury. The holdings would move out of Lightspeed’s Select V and Opportunity II funds, plus a separately managed account, and into a continuation vehicle. That lets the firm keep exposure to companies it thinks can keep compounding, while giving the original fund investors a way to get cash back instead of waiting for the old fund to wind down.
OpenAI is the biggest piece of the package. It closed a $122 billion round in March 2026 at an $852 billion post-money valuation, with Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank among the backers. Anthropic is the new name in this vehicle, but not new to Lightspeed; the firm has backed it across three straight rounds and led its $3.5 billion Series E in 2025. Anthropic later raised $65 billion in a Series H round in May 2026 at a $965 billion valuation, briefly moving ahead of OpenAI, after a $30 billion Series G just three months earlier.
The other names spread the risk across the rest of the AI boom. Verkada, Rippling and Glean all raised big rounds in 2025. Reflection AI moved even faster, raising $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation in October 2025, then being reported in March 2026 to be seeking $2.5 billion at a $25 billion valuation. It has also signed a potential $6.3 billion compute deal with SpaceX.
The move comes after Lightspeed closed $9 billion in new AI funds in December 2025. And that is really the point: continuation funds are no longer a niche finance trick. They are becoming the way venture firms keep a grip on AI winners when the next round arrives before the old fund has even finished its lunch.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is what happens when venture stops pretending it is a 10-year clock and starts acting like a season ticket. The smartest money wants to stay on the train, and the rest of the LPs get asked to pay for the privilege of not missing the next stop. Very efficient, very modern, and exactly the sort of thing that makes private markets feel a bit too much like a club with a bouncer.
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