Lightspeed is sharpening its India strategy around AI, targeting $250 million for a new early-stage fund called Lightspeed India Partners V. The vehicle is half the size of its $500 million predecessor raised in 2022 and has already secured commitments for 80% of its target, according to an investor letter dated Thursday and seen by TechCrunch. Lightspeed plans to begin investing from the new fund within two months and has designed it around an investment period of roughly two and a half years. Until then, it will continue making its final investments from the existing fund. A spokesperson declined to comment.

The fund was previously disclosed in a late April U.S. regulatory filing without a target size, and Indian media had reported the firm was seeking between $300 million and $350 million. The smaller $250 million size is meant to match how quickly Lightspeed is currently investing and its shorter investment period, allowing the firm to focus on individual deals rather than fund size and to raise its next fund sooner.

Starting with this fund, Lightspeed is for the first time aligning its India funds with the same fundraising cycle as its global funds, bringing a regional business it established nearly two decades ago more closely in line with the rest of the firm. The change follows a similar coordinated move by rival Accel, which in August raised its latest $550 million India fund alongside new U.S. and Europe funds and a global growth vehicle as part of a $3.5 billion fundraising effort.

The new fund also marks a sharper thematic focus on AI for Lightspeed‘s early-stage investment strategy in the region. The investment thesis outlined in the letter anticipates AI creating more value in India than the internet did, with the fund seeking AI companies across India and Southeast Asia. Lightspeed is already a major investor in AI companies including Anthropic, xAI, and Databricks, and in India has backed Sarvam AI, a leading large language model developer selected by the Indian government to help develop sovereign AI models.

India has yet to produce a major frontier AI model developer on the global stage and has attracted far less AI investment than the U.S. and China. Investors nonetheless increasingly see an opportunity for India in the application layer, drawing on the country’s large pool of software developers and its decades-long history as a hub for software and technology services.

The $250 million India vehicle is a fraction of the capital available across Lightspeed‘s global platform. The firm manages more than $65 billion in assets globally and raised $9 billion across several new funds last December, its largest fundraising haul ever, including a $980 million early-stage venture fund. Dedicated India and Southeast Asia funds have deployed roughly $900 million, while Lightspeed‘s global funds have invested another $1.6 billion to support companies from the regional portfolio, according to the investor letter.

Lightspeed‘s India portfolio spans quick commerce, consumer internet, software, and household services, including Zepto, Pocket FM, Snabbit, and SolarSquare. The same team that led Lightspeed‘s previous four India funds will manage the new fund.