- Lightspeed is seeking about $600 million to extend stakes in OpenAI and four other holdings.
- The deal adds a fresh commitment to Anthropic, now valued above OpenAI at $965 billion.
- It follows the $9 billion in new AI funds Lightspeed closed in December 2025.
Lightspeed Venture Partners wants more time with its winners. The firm is seeking about $600 million through a secondary transaction to extend its ownership of OpenAI and four other portfolio companies, while adding a new commitment to Anthropic, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The transaction, known internally as Project Mercury, would move holdings from Lightspeed’s Select V and Opportunity II funds, along with a separately managed account, into a continuation vehicle. That structure lets the firm hang onto its strongest positions past a fund’s normal lifecycle while still returning cash to the limited partners who backed those funds in the first place.
Where the $600 million is going
OpenAI is the anchor asset. The company closed a $122 billion round in March 2026 at an $852 billion post-money valuation, backed by Amazon, NVIDIA, and SoftBank, a deal Tech Funding News covered.
Anthropic is the new addition to this particular vehicle, though not to Lightspeed’s book. The firm has backed Anthropic across three consecutive rounds, including leading its $3.5 billion Series E in 2025.
The Claude maker raised $65 billion in a Series H round in May 2026 at a $965 billion valuation, just three months after a $30 billion Series G at $380 billion. Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital co-led the round, which briefly pushed Anthropic’s valuation past OpenAI’s.
The other three assets spread the exposure beyond frontier labs. Verkada, the AI physical security company, raised $200 million in a Series E round in February 2025 at a $4.5 billion valuation, then jumped to $5.8 billion after a CapitalG investment in December 2025.
Rippling, the workforce management platform now locked in a corporate-espionage lawsuit with rival Deel, raised $450 million in a Series G round in May 2025 at a $16.8 billion valuation, alongside a $200 million tender offer to buy back employee shares. And Glean, the enterprise AI search company, raised $150 million in a Series F round in June 2025 at a $7.2 billion valuation, led by Wellington Management.
Reflection AI, the fifth name in the portfolio, has moved fastest of all. It raised $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation in October 2025 with NVIDIA, Lightspeed, and Sequoia participating, then was reported in March 2026 to be seeking $2.5 billion at a $25 billion valuation as it positions itself as the West’s answer to DeepSeek. It has since signed a potential $6.3 billion compute deal with SpaceX, giving it access to Nvidia GB300 chips at SpaceX’s Colossus 2 facility through 2029.
Why continuation funds are having a moment
Selling a winning stake when a fund reaches the end of its life used to be standard practice. Continuation funds flip that: managers move selected holdings into a new vehicle, giving existing investors an exit while the firm keeps its position.
For AI investments specifically, that structure has become close to necessary. Valuations are compounding so quickly that simply keeping pace in later rounds requires hundreds of millions of dollars a firm may not have sitting in an ageing fund.
Lightspeed’s move is a symptom of a market where a handful of companies are absorbing an outsized share of venture capital. The harder question is what this means for LPs being asked to roll into a continuation vehicle rather than cash out.
Holding onto OpenAI and Anthropic stakes looks straightforward when both companies are pricing up every few months. It looks different if either slows, and continuation funds, by design, lock existing capital in for another cycle before that answer is known.
