Bessemer raises $5.75 billion for new seed and growth funds

Bessemer Venture Partners has raised $5.75 billion across two new vehicles: a $4 billion growth fund and a $1.75 billion seed and early fund. Samir, a leader at the firm, argues that a billion-dollar seed fund is necessary in the current AI era because capital-intensive businesses require larger checks to identify winners, contrasting this with historical seed checks of $3-5 million on $20-40 million valuations. The firm’s strategy involves concentrated bets, with average late-stage growth checks at 5-10% of the fund, potentially reaching $200-400 million per company. Bessemer previously held a 20% position in Anthropic in its last growth fund and has recently announced a nearly $200 million investment in Lease AI, in addition to investing nearly $200 million in Waymo. Samir notes that the growth team targets 10x returns in growth funds and 50x returns in early funds, viewing the professionalization of the VC asset class as forcing firms to be either giant global platforms or extreme specialists to succeed. He describes the AI market as a "cloud redux," predicting consolidation to a handful of capital-intensive frontier labs similar to hyperscalers, with hundreds of apps built on top. Regarding the debate between open and closed models, Samir argues the ratio is irrelevant given the massive total addressable market, asserting both will be huge. He notes Bessemer is invested in both Anthropic (closed) and Fireworks (open infrastructure), and believes a US-based open-weight model is a significant market hole, citing Thinking Machines at a $40 billion price point. He also highlights sovereign models, noting investments in Sarvam in India and Mistral in Europe, driven by geopolitical and language-specific needs.