Bessemer Venture Partners has raised $5.75 billion across two new funds as it increases investment across the AI sector. The venture firm allocated $1.75 billion to seed and early-stage companies and $4 billion to growth-stage investments.
Bessemer said both funds were raised in a single close. The firm plans to invest across the AI stack, including computing infrastructure, foundation models, developer tools, applications and agent-based software.
Bessemer Expands From Early-Stage to Growth Investing
According to Bessemer’s official funding announcement, about 70% of its investments are traditionally made at the early stage. The new $4 billion growth fund gives the firm additional capital to invest in companies that remain private for longer and reach larger valuations before entering public markets.
Partner Byron Deeter said AI-native companies are scaling faster than previous technology categories Bessemer has backed. He also told Bloomberg that companies staying private for longer has become a structural change in the venture market, increasing the need for larger growth funds.
Bessemer has previously invested in AI companies including Anthropic, Cognition, Legora and Perplexity, alongside companies such as Waymo, Ramp and Shopify. Its earlier enterprise software investments include Box, DocuSign and Gainsight.
The firm’s history in software is also tracked through its Bessemer Cloud Index, which follows public cloud companies and has reflected much of its investment focus during the software-as-a-service era.
More Than $3 Billion Has Gone Into AI Companies
Since 2022, Bessemer says it has backed more than 260 AI-native companies and invested over $3 billion across the sector. Those investments span computing and infrastructure, foundation models, developer platforms, AI applications and autonomous agents.
The firm says experience from previous technology investments has influenced its current AI strategy. Its investment in semiconductor networking company Mellanox, for example, gave Bessemer exposure to infrastructure that later became important for GPU computing clusters.
Bessemer has also expanded its dedicated growth investment team rather than limiting later-stage funding to companies it originally backed at an earlier stage. Recent growth investments include Anthropic, ClickHouse, Cognition, Fireworks, Legora, Saronic and Waymo.
The new funds give Bessemer additional capital to invest from a company’s first institutional financing through later growth rounds. The firm said it plans to continue investing across geographic markets rather than limiting its AI strategy to one region.
Featured image credits: Magnific.com
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