Three of Silicon Valley's most active venture capital firms — Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Khosla Ventures — have placed bets on both Anthropic, the $61.5 billion AI lab, and Sarvam AI, a fast-growing Indian startup valued at $1.5 billion. The overlap underscores how a small group of investors is dominating the funding spree across artificial intelligence, from San Francisco to Bengaluru.
The shared investor lineup
Lightspeed led Anthropic's $3.5 billion Series E round in March 2025. Documents show Lightspeed entities also hold equity, preference shares, and convertible debentures in Axonwise Private Limited, the legal entity behind Sarvam AI. General Catalyst got its link to Sarvam through its 2024 acquisition of Venture Highway — Venture Highway Fund III holds Series A convertible debentures in the Indian firm. General Catalyst is also an investor in Anthropic and French rival Mistral AI. Khosla Ventures, OpenAI's first venture capital backer, owns equity and Series A preference shares in Sarvam AI.
Sarvam AI's rapid rise
Founded in 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, Sarvam AI raised $234 million in the first close of its $300 million Series B round in June 2026. The company builds large language models tailored for Indian languages and use cases. It's one of a handful of startups trying to challenge global players from a base outside the US or Europe.
Why the overlap matters
Having the same backers across continents isn't unusual in venture capital, but the pattern here is stark. Lightspeed, General Catalyst, and Khosla are placing enormous sums into just a handful of AI companies. Anthropic's latest round alone was $3.5 billion. Sarvam's Series B target is $300 million. The concentration raises questions about whether a few firms are effectively gatekeeping access to the capital needed to compete in AI. It also means those firms hold leverage over a growing web of portfolio companies that may one day compete directly.
Neither Lightspeed nor General Catalyst commented for this story. Khosla Ventures did not respond to a request for comment.
