LightSpeed Venture Partners Raises $1.8billion For Start-up Projects Including Cryptocurrency Projects

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Will china ban bitcoin?
Will china ban bitcoin?

LightSpeed Venture Partners Raises $1.8billion For Start-up Projects Including Cryptocurrency Projects

Consequent to its intention to expand its frontiers into the SouthEast Asian market, Lightspeed Venture Partners, which was one of the early investors in Snap Inc. has succeeded in raising $1.8billion for start-up projects, including cryptocurrency projects.

LightSpeed’s Expansion into SouthEast Asia

The venture capital firm’s intention to extend its business operations to SouthEast Asia where there is a booming virtual currency market has raised the likelihood that the VC firm would fund some ambitious cryptocurrency projects in the region.

The early investor in Snap Inc. is reportedly going to assign $1.05 billion of its total $1.8billion funds as a distinct fund to make investments in mature companies rather than its typical approach of investing into start-up businesses.

As specifically stated by partners of the VC firm, its proposed expansion into the region would include making investments in cryptocurrency, biotechnology and novel TV streaming services.

Media outlets  reported that the VC firm employed a new partner, Brad Twohig, to spearhead the firm’s growth investments. Lightspeed according to sources has  returned  about $2.7billion to its investors since the beginning of last year, a feat which isn’t common in the Venture Capital industry because most tech companies backed by Venture capital firms have continued to prolong their initial public offerings. However, the companies backed by LightSpeed over the past five years have conducted  about 17 IPOs, a good number of which took place in 2017.

LightSpeed and the Crypto Industry

Reports have it that the  partners of the Venture Capital firm are familiar with the dynamics of the  cryptocurrency and bloc chain industry. A partner, Jeremy Liew, stated last year that bitcoin and other crypto currencies would continue to be in demand as several countries globally were experiencing instabilities due to military and geopolitics  interventions. Accordingly, he opined that people would begin to seek out alternative currencies especially in places such  as South America, Middle East and Eastern Europe, where political instability and inflation are quite common.

Other notable investments of the Lightspeed firm includes its investment into Telegram which raised over $1.7billion in its pre-sale and the massive success prompted the messaging app  to announce that it would no longer have a public ICO. LightSpeed reportedly  made its first token investments when it backed Basis in April 2017.