Dev Khare grew up moving between India and abroad as the child of an Indian Foreign Service officer, later built and sold a mobile company before becoming one of the earliest investors bridging the US and India through deals like SlideShare, and now argues that India's biggest winners fix broken, fragmented supply first rather than copying US or China templates, growing steadily and profitably instead of burning cash for hypergrowth. He's especially drawn to founders he's tracked for years, thinks about what startups will matter once AI makes raw intelligence cheap, and sees Indian venture investing as tied to the country's own growth in areas like digital payments, defense, and energy.
About their Fund
Lightspeed India focuses on solving India-specific problems rather than copying U.S. or China playbooks, invests mostly at the seed and Series A stage but can offer much larger follow-on funding through its global platform, and writes checks from about $1 million to $100 million across India and Southeast Asia using the same fund. The firm also provides dedicated in-house support in areas like talent, leadership, and M&A, has added experienced operators such as former Boat CEO Vivek Gambhir and Gojek cofounder Kevin Aluwi as venture partners, prefers secondary share sales over IPOs as its main way of returning capital, and sees India's biggest AI opportunity in application-layer tools and upgrading IT and BPO work rather than building foundational AI infrastructure.
















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