Lighthouse Canton Secures $40 Mn in Strategic Funding Led by Peak XV Partners to Power Its Next Phase of Growth

Global investment institution, Lighthouse Canton, today announces a USD 40 million strategic investment round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Nextinfinity (investment holding company of Shyam Maheshwari - Founding Partner of SSG Capital, later Ares SSG). Qatar Insurance Company (QIC), an early investor in the company, continues to support its growth.

Founded in 2014, Lighthouse Canton has grown organically managing over USD 5 billion in assets across Singapore, India, the UAE, and the United Kingdom. Over the past decade, the company has built a reputation for disciplined investment management and a client-first approach that has made it a trusted partner for entrepreneurs, families, and institutions across regions.

This is Lighthouse Canton’s first external fundraise, undertaken to accelerate the next phase of its growth journey. The capital will be deployed to enhance technology infrastructure, attract senior talent, expand its product capabilities, and pursue geographic growth opportunities across high-potential markets.

“This is a defining milestone for us,” said Shilpi Chowdhary, Group CEO of Lighthouse Canton. “We have built Lighthouse Canton with an institutional mindset independently. For more than ten years we have been guided by a long-term vision of creating a world-class investment platform. With Peak XV and our strategic partners, we are deepening our capabilities, institutionalizing further, and positioning ourselves for the next decade of growth.”

Lighthouse Canton’s wealth management business provides personalized, family, wealth and business solutions for high-net-worth individuals, entrepreneurs, and family offices, while its asset management arm offers institutional-grade strategies across public and private markets. Lighthouse Canton’s strong regional presence and focus on disciplined execution have enabled it to serve clients across complex cross-border environments with agility and trust.

This strategic funding marks a new chapter in Lighthouse Canton’s journey and one that focuses on scale, innovation, and institutional depth, while continuing to deliver exceptional value to clients.

About Lighthouse Canton

Lighthouse Canton is a global investment institution with wealth and asset management capabilities. We employ over 200 experienced professionals across our offices in Singapore, Dubai, India, and London, and currently oversee over US$ 5 bn worth of assets under management and advisory. Lighthouse Canton creates value through innovative investment solutions for accredited private clients, institutional investors, and an ecosystem of founders and entrepreneurs globally.

Lighthouse Canton’s Asset Management business comprises strong internal product capabilities in hedge funds, private equity, traditional fundamental analysis, investing through multiple strategies in real estate private equity, private credit, venture capital, growth debt, public equities, and global macros.

Its Wealth Management business caters to accredited investors including corporates, ultra-high net worth individuals, families and family offices, founders, and entrepreneurs, to help with their personal and business investments, estates, and philanthropic needs, providing them tailored investment advisory, portfolio management, treasury, business & family office solutions.

Lighthouse Canton Pte Ltd is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (“MAS”). Lighthouse Canton Capital (DIFC) Pte Ltd is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (“DFSA”). LC Capital India Pte Ltd is regulated by Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”). Lighthouse Canton UK Limited is regulated by Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”)

For more information visit www.lighthouse-canton.com

About Peak XV

Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) is a leading venture capital firm investing across India, Southeast Asia and beyond. Over the last 19 years of operations in the region, Peak XV has grown to manage approximately USD 9 billion in capital across 13 funds and invested in over 400 companies.

The portfolio has seen 31 IPOs and several successful M&As till date.

To know more, please visit: www.peakxv.com

VoidZero Raises $12.5M Series A to Launch Vite+, the Unified JavaScript Toolchain

VoidZero, the company behind the next generation of open-source JavaScript tooling, today announced its successful fund raise of $12.5 million in a Series A round led by Accel, with participation from Peak XV Partners, Sunflower Capital, and notable angel investors including Koen Bok (Framer) and Eric Simons (StackBlitz). The funding will accelerate the commercial release of Vite+ (VoidZero’s unified toolchain), fuel team expansion, and deepen investment in its open-source projects.

JavaScript powers nearly every modern web experience, yet its ecosystem has grown increasingly fragmented. As applications scale in complexity, inconsistent tooling leads to productivity loss, higher maintenance and hiring costs, and growing security and performance risks. With 28 million developers worldwide and growing, every inefficiency can translate into significant challenges, amplified by recent supply chain attacks and performance bottlenecks.

Vite+ addresses these challenges by seamlessly combining development server, production build, testing, linting, formatting, project scaffolding, and monorepo management into a single, coherent command-line interface. Built atop the company’s open-source projects - Vite, Vitest, Rolldown, and Oxc - Vite+ ensures full compatibility with industry standards while delivering unmatched speed, consistency and usability. Vite alone is downloaded 36 million times weekly, while Vitest, the test runner, reaches 16 million downloads per week. Evan You, Founder and CEO of VoidZero said, “Our mission is simple: make JavaScript developers dramatically more productive. With Vite+, we’re building a unified, high-performance toolchain that developers can trust across every stage of their workflow. This funding allows us to bring that vision to life faster while supporting the sustainability of our open-source ecosystem.”

This round of fund-raising marks Peak XV Partners’ strengthened support for developer innovation in India and the wider APAC region. With over 11.4 million developers and more than 440,000 organisations on GitHub, India has one of the world’s fastest-growing communities of developers. This growth, along with India’s vibrant SaaS and startup ecosystem, makes it a key market for next-generation developer tools like Vite+.

VoidZero envisions Vite+ becoming the ubiquitous toolkit for JavaScript developers from startups to the enterprise. By simplifying development, the company aims to empower more developers to focus on building meaningful products instead of worrying about tooling.

The company’s open-source tools already power products at OpenAI, Shopify, Stripe, Cloudflare, Hugging Face, and Mercedes-Benz. Its projects earned multiple accolades in the 2024 State of JS Survey, and it maintains design partnerships with elite engineering teams including Framer and Linear.

About VoidZero

Founded in 2023, VoidZero is a globally remote company with 17 employees, building the next generation of JavaScript developer tools. Its mission is to make JavaScript developers more productive than ever before through unified, high-performance tooling. Website: voidzero.dev.

WizCommerce Raises $8M to Rebuild the $10T Wholesale Market with AI

WizCommerce, the AI-native sales and ecommerce platform for wholesale distributors, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India), with participation from Blume Ventures, Z47, and Alpha Wave. The funding will fuel WizCommerce’s continued expansion across the U.S. and accelerate development of its AI-powered platform for sales, commerce, and B2B payments.

Founded by Divyaanshu Makkar (ex-Bessemer Venture Partners, ex-EY-Parthenon) and Vikas Garg (ex-Zomato), WizCommerce is modernizing the infrastructure behind the $10 trillion U.S. wholesale market, a space that still runs on spreadsheets, outdated portals, and manual order-taking.

The platform brings together sales reps, marketers, and buyers on one system, combining AI-powered quoting, intelligent storefronts, ERP integrations, lifestyle image generation, and embedded payments. Already, $100M+ in GMV flows through the WizCommerce network annually, with 700+ reps and 300K+ buyers using the platform across categories like home décor, lighting, and general merchandise.

“We’re building the stack wholesale should have had all along,” said Divyaanshu Makkar, CEO and co-founder of WizCommerce. “A few years from now, no one will be calling to check stock or emailing product photos. AI will handle the grunt work - what to sell, how to sell it, and all the admin work in between. Reps will close faster, ops teams will run lighter, and buyers will get a curated experience that feels effortless. That’s the future and it’s closer than people think. With this fundraise we plan to double down on AI and launch an AI workforce for distributors to automate both back office and front office operations.”

“What stands out is how consistently WizCommerce earns praise from both reps and buyers,” said Rishen Kapoor, VP at Peak XV. “Reps tell us it’s the tool they open first, and buyers appreciate the simpler ordering process. It’s uncommon to see a platform improve internal workflows and customer experience at once. With hundreds of reps and thousands of buyers already using it, WizCommerce is on track to become a core part of the wholesale tech stack.”

Rishen Kapoor added, “Wholesale is still largely run on legacy systems. WizCommerce is addressing that gap with an AI‑first product built for the industry’s day‑to‑day needs. Their early traction shows they’re well‑placed to lead the shift.”

Sajith Pai, Partner at Blume Ventures, said, “Div, Vikas, and the team at WizCommerce have built a product stack that U.S. wholesalers and distributors absolutely love, reflected in their rapid revenue growth. Thanks to a culture built around intense customer listening, a ship fast attitude leveraging AI tooling, they are able to rapidly launch and succeed with new products such as WizAI and WizStudio addressing key customer needs. The new round will help in continued acceleration on product development, and GTM efforts including expansion into adjacent verticals.”

WizCommerce is actively hiring across engineering, AI, product, and GTM functions, with hubs in the U.S. and India.

Fintech Startup Ambak Raises $7 Mn in Funding Led by Peak XV Partners

• Founders are ex-leadership from Policybazaar, Paisabazaar, CarDekho, Freecharge by Axis Bank, HDFC Life and ZestMoney
• In just 12 months, Ambak has served 15,000+ home buyers and signed an official partnership with Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to serve 35,000+ customers

Ambak, a technology-driven marketplace streamlining the home loan process, announces $7 million in funding through a combination of Seed and Pre-Series A funding. Leading investors include Peak XV’s Surge in the seed round, with Peak XV Partners doubling down for Pre-Series A, Advantedge VC, DeVC, and angel investors, who have significantly increased their stake in the company.

The founders, leaders from PB Fintech, Freecharge, CarDekho Group and ZestMoney who have built scaled platforms in insurance, car loans and unsecured lending, launched Ambak in January 2024, to improve customer and home seller experience in a fragmented, opaque and large ($160 Bn / annum) home finance market. Despite favourable government policies like the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), the home loan process in India remains cumbersome, often confusing customers with over 150 financiers offering loans. Ambak simplifies this by providing a transparent, three-step process for selecting the right financier, supported by Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and bank rule engines.

Within the first 12 months, Ambak has built their marketplace integrating with 50+ lenders, expanded distribution in 6 states and automated credit processes to serve the needs of 15,000+ customers and 3,000+ intermediaries including builders and brokers. They also signed an industry-first official partnership with Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to serve 35,000+ customers over the next 12 months. This growth prompted their existing investors with Peak XV as the lead to infuse a further $3.7 Million in January 2025 to co-create new products, build AI tools and expand distribution to all major hubs in India.

"For a majority of Indians, buying a home is the biggest financial decision they will ever make, but access and affordability continue to be a significant hurdle. Despite 160+ lenders serving all types of customers & properties, customers find it hard to find the right lender and handle the process. Ambak’s mission is to distribute $20 billion in home finance annually in the next five years, while leading the charge to provide transparency and predictability to the home-buying experience," shared Raghuveer Malik, CEO of Ambak.

 

Ashish Agrawal, Managing Director, Peak XV shared, “Mortgages represent the largest market for credit in India. The founding team at Ambak come with strong relevant experience and we are impressed with their early execution. We believe they can leverage technology effectively to solve for various needs of borrowers, intermediaries and banks in the mortgage market.”

Ambak, which has quietly been building its presence and launched its app 12 months ago, has been making waves in the industry. The startup uses technology and integrations with Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) services to serve both the customer & their lending partners offering a simple and assisted process for getting a home loan.

“We felt that the distribution of the secured retail lending space, in which home loans is the largest component, was riddled with lack of innovation despite lenders having made monumental upgrades in the last 5 years” said Rameshwar Gupta, CTO of Ambak who previously served as the CTO of Freecharge (By Axis Bank).

Ambak's Expansion and Innovation Goals

The newly raised funds will enable Ambak to expand its operations across 35 cities and serve 100,000+ customers, crossing $1 Billion in disbursements in FY26. To ensure it stays customer-obsessed, Ambak is strengthening its Loan Comparison tools, developing Vernacular AI bots for better customer outreach, and improving its AI/ML-based loan processing engine. The company is also co-creating products with financiers to expand options and deepen financial penetration across the country.

Leveraging Technology to Drive Change

Ambak’s platform integrates real-time data from lenders and employs AI-driven processes to reduce turnaround times and minimize customer confusion. By streamlining operations, Ambak aims to drive the adoption of customer-centric practices that promote transparency and affordability, ensuring a significant boost to the home finance sector by FY32.

Ambak is a fintech startup revolutionizing the home financing industry. By combining advanced technology with a customer-centric approach, AMBAK simplifies the mortgage process and helps individuals achieve their dream of homeownership. The platform leverages data analytics, AI-driven recommendations, and robust customer support to provide a transparent, efficient, and empowering experience. For more information, visit https://www.ambak.com/

Ethical Hackers Founded PingSafe Raises $3.3 Mn Seed Fund in Round Led By Peak XV Partners

Cyber security startup PingSafe, founded by ethical hackers — Anand Prakash and Nishant Mittal, has secured a $3.3 million seed funding in a round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India) along with participation of other investors, reported several media outlets.

Other investors who participated in this round include angel investors, Rahul Chari (PhonePe co-founder), Neeraj Arora, Saurya Prakash, Vivek Ramachandran (SquareX Founder), Gaurav Agarwal (Tata 1mg co-founder & CTO), and early stage VC firm Tanglin Ventures.

In a media statement, PingSafe says that the freshly raised funds will ramp up global business development efforts in US and South-East Asian countries. With the Indian government bringing new regulations like Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) into law, along with the increasing cybersecurity risk faced by clients as they move to cloud, PingSafe is well positioned to serve the Indian cloud security market needs

Since rebranding this is Peak XV's second investment. Last month, Bengaluru-based spacetech startup Digantara secured $10 million from Peak XV.

Founded in 2021, PingSafe is a cloud security platform with a comprehensive knowledge of the attackers' modus-operandi. PingSafe helps businesses across various sizes and verticals transform cloud security and claims to eliminate all hidden and exploitable vulnerabilities at blazing-fast speed and scale.

Anand Prakash, the Co-Founder & CEO, is a renowned white hat hacker who ranked in the top 5 bug bounty hunters by companies like Meta, Uber, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Salesforce. He has helped secure over 400+ leading companies and was featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia - Enterprise Technology in 2017.

Space Tech Startup Digantara Raises $10 Mn in Series A Funding Led by Peak XV Partners

Indian Institute of Science (IISc) -incubated space technology company Digantara has raised $10 million in Series A funding round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia). Kalaari Capital also participated in this round, reported media outlets including Tech Crunch and Mint.

This is notably the first space-tech investment by the Sequoia and also the first official funding announcement since restructuring from Sequoia India.

Founded in December 2018 by Indian engineers Anirudh Sharma, Rahul Rawat and Tanveer Ahmed, Digantara has raised $12.5 million till date, including the seed round of $2.5 million from Kalaari Capital in July 2021.

Digantara will use the freshly raised funds to build its commercial space situational awareness satellites, as part of its infrastructure as well as to expand its team and set up a new office in Bengaluru.

Digantara, which specializes in space weather and space debris-tracking, is building its space data mapping service. 

Digantara has successfully launched its second satellite named Pushan-Alpha onboard SpaceX's Transporter 6 mission on January 3.

Bengaluru-based Digantara is a space situational awareness company that is developing an end-to-end infrastructure to address the difficulties of space operations and space traffic management through its pioneering Space - Mission Assurance Platform a.k.a. Space-MAP, which will serve as a one stop solution for all space operations with products offered through a data feedback loop using multi modal data sets. This platform will be as powerful and sophisticated as Google Maps, serving as a foundational layer for space operations and astrodynamics research.

Digantara is presently working with the Indian space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to source satellite data, among others.

In January, Digantara was recognised as Winner under “Space” category by Startup India for their efforts towards building sovereign SSA capability at National Startup Awards 2022.