Lightspeed

Announcing the 2025 Cyber 60 and our second annual CISO survey! https://lnkd.in/exXEt_r4 At Lightspeed, our team has been investing in enterprise founders for 25 years, and cybersecurity remains one of the core pillars of our global enterprise practice. For the second year, we are spotlighting leading companies in this sector and releasing our second annual CISO survey. Together with Fortune, we have compiled a list of the top 60 venture-backed cybersecurity startups. Congratulations! We’re also releasing our CISO survey. We surveyed 200 CISOs and the results show that, more than ever, this is cybersecurity’s moment. There is a growing demand for cybersecurity solutions and AI is heavily impacting the decision making from CISOs. Read more about the Cyber 60 companies and check out the survey results here: https://lnkd.in/exXEt_r4  #Cyber60 #cybersecurity

Join Lightspeed and Pika to kick off NeurIPS 2024 Tuesday, December 10th! Catch up with friends in research, academia, and the industry - we're looking forward to seeing you! Chenlin Meng Demi G. Omer Bar Tal Leonie Engel Nnamdi Iregbulem James Alcorn Register here: https://lnkd.in/gG7S52jW

At our latest #GenLA meetup, Drew T., Vice President of Consumer Experiences at PayPal, and Cosmin Nicolaescu, former Chief Technology Officer of Brex, joined Lightspeed Partner Justin Overdorff for a fireside chat about the challenges and opportunities AI brings to fintech. Here are a few key takeaways from their discussion: → Although there have been significant advancements in AI and fintech, with models achieving much lower error rates than before, the remaining errors are more challenging to detect and often vary across different models. → If AI hasn't already transformed the hiring process and team evaluations, it will soon. With the rise of ChatGPT and other LLMs, companies should adjust their hiring process to deal with these changes. → Companies should start reevaluating skills that will increasingly be done by AI, such as certain engineering tasks that will probably be done automatically in the future. However, the devaluation of some skills will likely be offset by other skills becoming more valuable. Read the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/eHXP96zw

Big news from two 2025 #Cyber60 winners. Lightspeed-backed Wiz, the leader in cloud-native application protection, has acquired Dazz, the standout in application security and remediation. Together, they’re changing how organizations detect and remediate risks—from code to cloud to infrastructure. We’re proud to have partnered with Wiz since leading their $300M Series D. This next chapter, powered by Dazz’s remediation capabilities, is a huge step forward for teams tackling today’s toughest security challenges. Congrats to Wiz Co-Founders Yinon C., Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak @Roy Reznik, Dazz Co-Founders Merav Bahat, Tomer Schwartz, and Yuval Ofir, and both their teams on this exciting milestone!

🚨 We’re back with our latest Financing Spotlight! Congratulations to these Lightspeed-backed companies on their recent financings: → Distyl AI, collaborates with leading institutions to enhance their AI readiness and build dependable integrated AI-driven solutions tailored to their distinct data, workflows, and employee requirements. Cc: Co-Founders Arjun Prakash and Derek Ho → Keychain, an online platform that connects food and beverage consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies with manufacturers that can make their products. Cc: Co-Founders Jordan Weitz, Oisin Hanrahan, and Umang Dua → Outsmart College, working towards making higher education significantly more accessible and equitable, worldwide. Cc: Co-Founders Daniel Falabella, Gina Gotthilf, and Jorge Mazal → ScaleOps - Cloud-Native Optimization, the real-time resource management platform fully automates cloud resources in production environments, resulting in up to 80% cloud cost savings, increased application reliability, and improved performance through AI-powered algorithms. Cc: Co-Founders Yodar Shafrir and Guy Baron

In celebration of Twilio’s 16th anniversary, our Partner Nnamdi Iregbulem was invited to judge this year's AI Startup Searchlight Awards, selecting 16 startups that are using Twilio’s tools to transform how businesses engage with customers. As Nnamdi shared, “Twilio stands at the intersection of communications, contextual data, and AI,” empowering builders to unlock bold possibilities. Congratulations to Twilio’s 2024 AI Startup Searchlight Honorees! Check out the full list here: https://lnkd.in/gcENKf8U

Check out part two of this week’s Generative Now Podcast with our Partner Michael Mignano and Matthew Hartman, Founder and Managing Partner at Factorial Capital: https://spoti.fi/49hVDsB AI-driven personalization is changing how we interact with content. Right now, most platforms rely on ads to keep services free. But with AI, we could see a future where content, news, and product recommendations are tailored to us—without the interruption of ads. Thanks to innovations like WebGPU, AI is becoming more efficient, processing data locally on users' devices. This gives you more control and delivers better, more personalized results. Whether it’s news, products, or entertainment, the AI can serve up what you actually want. But scaling this at a low cost is the challenge. Running AI models for millions of users requires massive processing power, which drives up costs. Listen to the full episode for more on the future of AI.

With insights from 154 companies, our latest Sales Benchmark Report digs into the strategies and trends helping companies across our network hit—and even exceed—their revenue goals. From the power of realistic forecasting to the value of embracing remote work models, this year’s findings offer founders and sales leaders key lessons to drive growth. Swipe through for some of the top takeaways, then visit our blog for the full report: https://lnkd.in/g2vwA9ty Cc: Luke Beseda

Last year, Lightspeed led Keychain’s seed round, and today we’re proud to share that we are deepening our relationship by investing in their new $15M financing. My friends, Co-Founders Oisin Hanrahan and Umang Dua, and their team have built an incredible platform that in just 9 months since launch is already facilitating over $500M in manufacturing projects monthly, transforming collaboration between brands and manufacturers in the CPG ecosystem. At its core, Keychain addresses a major industry challenge by simplifying the historically fragmented process of manufacturing collaboration. In less than a year, they’ve become the go-to platform for 20,000+ brands and retailers—and they’re just getting started. What excites us at Lightspeed the most is the team’s long-term vision. They’re not just building a U.S.-based CPG platform but creating a platform to redefine global manufacturing and trade. Huge congratulations to the entire Keychain team. We’re proud to deepen our partnership as they scale into new verticals and geographies. Check out our blog post from earlier this year to learn more about how Keychain is reshaping the manufacturing landscape: https://lnkd.in/djU7Pt8w If you're looking for an exciting startup to join - Keychain has several roles open across US and India. Alex Taussig

In part one of this week’s episode of the Generative Now Podcast, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano and Matthew Hartman, Founder and Managing Partner at Factorial Capital discuss WebGPU, transformer and predictive models, and the economics of content creation. They explore why premium content is becoming essential in an AI-driven world. The conversation also covers how businesses can adapt to the evolving dynamics of personalization and user acquisition. Watch part one of the episode below for more and stay tuned for part two next week. Spotify: https://spoti.fi/40Ke2Mj Apple: https://apple.co/3Z7fIOD YouTube: https://bit.ly/3AMlhZr