Success with Snap helps venture capital firm Lightspeed raise $1,8 billion for new fund.

(Reuters)- Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners has raised $1,8 billion to invest in startups, hoping to capitalize on its tendency to make lucrative bets on companies like Snap, the firm's partners told Reuters.

Lightspeed has historically been an early-stage investment firm and was the first outside investor in Snap, the company behind the Snapchat instant messaging app. But about $1,05 billion of the new funding will go into a separate fund to invest in more mature companies, Lightspeed partners said Monday. That dollar amount is more than double the size of its previous growth-stage fund.

Lightspeed is eyeing business expansion into Southeast Asia and wants to add investments in cryptocurrency, biotechnology, TV streaming services, and even cosmetics companies.

As startups remain private for longer, relying on venture capital instead of public markets for funding, companies like Lightspeed have to repeatedly invest in a company for years if they want to maintain a large enough equity stake.

"This trend has only been increasing over time, and as a result, our resources have also been increasing over time," said Jeremy Liew, partner at Lightspeed.

The allocation of the company's largest fund to growth-stage investments reflects a shift in the venture capital industry that has been underway for years, as large investors worldwide accumulate investments in startups.

SoftBank Group's Vision Fund, an investment vehicle with over $93 billion in assets, has angered the venture capital community by investing billions of dollars in companies like WeWork and Uber Technologies. The fund typically holds a large equity stake and may buy out existing investors.

In the first half of the year, U.S. venture capital firms raised more than $20 billion across 157 funds, on track to surpass last year's total, according to a report released Tuesday by data firm PitchBook. In comparison, venture capital firms raised $18 billion across 157 funds for the entire year of 2004, the earliest data available from PitchBook.