Lightspeed

Depth is our center of gravity. Complete immersion is the heart of our philosophy on investing - dedicating ourselves to our Founders’ businesses and growing with them means we can build something truly impactful. Because possibility grows the deeper you go. https://lsvp.com/

Since its inception in 1993, NVIDIA has led the charge in accelerated computing. Fast forward to 2024, NVIDIA's data-center-scale offerings are transforming the industry. On this week’s episode of the Generative Now Podcast, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano is joined by Bill Dally, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President for Research at NVIDIA, who has over four decades of experience in computer hardware and architecture. They discuss the:  - evolution and revolution of AI and computing - expectations versus reality of the AI revolution  - impact of AI on chip design Watch the full episode to hear more about Bill’s groundbreaking research. Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3XtEqrU Apple: https://apple.co/3RouNHa Youtube: https://bit.ly/3Xjl1dd

Game Changers is back, and submissions are officially open! Game Changers is an annual list accelerating extraordinary startups in gaming and interactive media. The gaming industry has always played a pivotal role in shaping play, work, and connections, as well as advancements in technology. This year our theme is celebrating the resilience and adaptation of the gaming and interactive media industries. We are teaming up with leading industry judges, mentors, and GamesBeat to recognize the most innovative gaming startups of the year. The Game Changers 2025 list will cover 5 different categories and is supported by judges and mentors, who are some of the top executives and leaders in gaming. Winners receive widespread media coverage through GamesBeat and 1:1 mentoring with industry leaders. Check out all the details and apply here: lsvp.com/gamechangers/ Learn more about how to submit: https://lnkd.in/eS6mNhyH cc: Dean Takahashi Moritz Baier-Lentz 🎮

Lightspeed-backed Mistral AI is on a mission to make frontier AI accessible to all and is moving quickly to deliver on this. In the last year, they have released 7 models now ranking among top generative AI models. Their open-source AI technology serves complex use cases for a variety of industries, including financial industries and public sector. Congratulations to Co-Founders Timothee Lacroix, Guillaume Lample, Arthur Mensch and the entire Mistral AI team on announcing their Series B funding round - raising €600 million. After leading their seed round, we have doubled-down in their Series A and B. With this new round of financing, they will continue to push their AI technology, expand their team, and create more of a presence in the U.S. Read more about why we continue to build with Mistral on the blog: https://lnkd.in/gUw_wD7M cc: Paul Murphy and Antoine Moyroud

A strong data science foundation for companies is essential. It helps them make informed decisions and strategies, and can improve nearly every critical aspect of their company. Startups need to build a strong data infrastructure, but frequently - particularly for early-stage companies - it is hard for them to get the right team of data scientists.  At Lightspeed, we’re committed to providing our founders with the capital and operating expertise they need to gain advantages in competitive markets. As business environments evolve, we evolve to support our founders. Today, we see an opportunity to support our founders with data insights and that is why we are excited to announce that Eoin O'Mahony is joining Lightspeed as our Data Science Partner. He will lead a team that will use a combination of external data and Lightspeed internal data to help our portfolio companies improve their businesses and products. Read more about our approach here: https://lnkd.in/eaBh9iuD

This week on the Generative Now Podcast, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano is joined by Matthieu Rouif, Co-Founder and CEO at Photoroom, the AI photo editing app for mobile. Photoroom quickly went from a feature to a product with more than 150 million downloads and 30 million monthly active users. In this episode, they discuss Matthieu’s entrepreneurial journey, what led to the creation of Photoroom, the customizable features they have created using Generative AI, and much more. “We have a full set of Gen AI features. They come from our photo instant diffusion model, which we train from scratch. From this model, that’s trained to do any photography, we do multiple things with AI backgrounds. Starting with an object, you generate a realistic scene that adapts to the light and the shadows of the product. And, we have a retouch feature using Gen AI to either erase an object from the photo or actually redraw and fill [the photo] with a new object that you can specify…” Watch the full episode to hear about Photoroom’s early startup successes and lessons learned along the way. Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4eeI2nF  Apple: https://apple.co/4eeVHvd Youtube: https://bit.ly/45fYiRy

Lightspeed Partner Alex Kayyal and Lightspeed-backed Grafana Labs Co-Founder & CEO Raj Dutt spoke at SaaStr Europa 2024. Some insights from their session at the main stage: → Find small ways to celebrate the role that non-sales people have in winning deals — whether that be engineers, lawyers, or anyone else at the company that helped. → Every year, as the founder/CEO, ask yourself what kind of relationship the company needs from you. This looks very different at 10 people versus 1200. → Think long-term about how you grow the pie. Grafana monetizes less than 1% of their users and they’ve crossed $250M of ARR. Watch the session here: https://lnkd.in/eGne6FqM

Congratulations to Pika on raising their $80M Series B to continue building the world’s most advanced AI video model. In November 2023, Lightspeed led the Series A and we’re excited to continue supporting Co-Founders, CEO Demi G. and CTO Chenlin Meng on their mission to enable video creation on demand. Here’s more on why we invested: https://lnkd.in/ehFTNyXX

Congratulations to the Lightspeed-backed companies who made the TIME 100 Most Influential Companies List of 2024 – Guardant Health, Epic Games, and Mistral AI. Check out the full list: https://lnkd.in/gbBdS4m5

At the 2024 Milken Institute Global Conference, Lightspeed Partner and Co-Founder Ravi Mhatre sat down with Worth Media Group CEO Josh Kampel for a conversation about the revolution of AI and its impact on enterprise tech. From Ravi: “The idea that a computer could think and be a thought partner with you – GPT was the coming out so that the world at large could understand that computers had crossed that threshold." Watch the full interview: https://lnkd.in/gfaVx3dV #MIGlobal