New Delhi, May 18 -- Silicon Valley venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners has exited a company that it first backed nine years ago from its maiden India fund even as it starts raising a new investment vehicle for the country.

Lightspeed India Partners, the American VC firm's India franchise that began raising its fifth fund recently, has sold its entire stake in logistics-tech company Freight Tiger to Mumbai-listed Tata Motors Ltd.

Tata Motors, the commercial vehicle arm of the Tata Group, is acquiring a stake of around 18% from Lightspeed, Mathew Cyriac-led Florintree and Freight Tiger founder Swapnil Shah for Rs 95.66 ($11.5 million) crore.

This will take Tata Motors' stake in Freight Tiger, operated by Freight Commerce Solutions Pvt. Ltd, to up to 63.6% on a fully diluted basis, converting it into a subsidiary of India's largest commercial vehicle maker.

Tata Motors didn't disclose other details of the secondary transactions. However, past regulatory disclosures accessed by VCCircle indicate that Lightspeed will pocket a little less than three-fourths of the total amount that Tata Motors is shelling out and that the VC firm's near-decade-long investment has turned into a lemon.

Tata's investments

This is the third time Tata Motors is investing in Freight Tiger. In October 2023, it invested Rs 150 crore and secured a 26.79% stake in Freight Tiger at a valuation of about Rs 560 crore. In September 2025, it deployed Rs 120 crore in primary capital via Series C compulsorily convertible preference shares and Rs 14 crore in a secondary purchase of 49,500 equity shares, lifting its stake to between 42% and 46% on a fully diluted basis.

India's biggest truck and bus maker - with roughly 39% of the domestic commercial vehicle market - says that it is building a vertically integrated digital layer for the logistics value chain and that Freight Tiger's cloud-based transportation management system and digital freight marketplace, together with its own Fleet Edge telematics platform, will create a comprehensive ecosystem covering "both the truck and the trip".

Tata Motors' total commitment now stands at almost Rs 380 crore so far. The latest transaction values Freight Tiger around Rs 530 crore, back-of-the-envelope calculations show.

Lightspeed's bet

Lightspeed invests in India both from a country-specific fund and its global vehicles. It invested in Freight Tiger from its maiden India fund, which closed in 2015 after raising $135 million. This fund invested in about a dozen other companies including Byju's, Shuttl, FreshMenu, MagicPin, Udaan, and ShareChat, VCCircle has gathered from regulatory filings.

The stake sale to Tata Motors marks the end of Lightspeed's association that began in October 2017 with a Rs 16.25-crore Series A cheque when Freight Tiger was little more than a digital visibility tool for truck shipments. The VC firm's initial bet valued the startup roughly Rs 65 crore (about $10 million at the time).

Lightspeed deployed capital across three more tranches: Rs 12.60 crore in 2019; Rs 11 crore in early 2020 as part of a Series B round, and approximately Rs 6.5 crore in May 2021 in an extended Series B round. In total, it invested about Rs 46.5 crore in Freight Tiger, according to VCCircle estimates based on regulatory filings.

The VC firm is now mopping up about Rs 69.50 crore by selling its stake to Tata Motors. That translates into a 1.5x multiple on invested capital and an internal rate of return (IRR) of about 5.8% in rupee terms, VCCircle estimates show. In dollar terms, which are more important for the American VC firm, Lightspeed may not be making any money and may even be booking a loss given the rupee's sharp decline against the greenback.

For perspective, VC firms chase a minimum 20% IRR in local currency and 15% in dollar terms.

Lightspeed's tepid returns from Freight Tiger aren't a surprise given the startup's poor growth trajectory and continued losses.

Freight Tiger, founded in 2014, reported revenue from operations of Rs 26.6 crore for the financial year ended March 2025, compared with Rs 17.8 crore in FY24 and Rs 18.9 crore in FY23. Cumulative revenue for the six financial years from FY20 through FY25 was around Rs 90 crore, according to VCCEdge.

On the flip side, it posted net losses of Rs 69.14 crore in FY25, 92.42 crore in FY24 and Rs 52.16 crore in FY23. Cumulative losses for the six financial years from FY20 through FY25 total Rs 310 crore, VCCEdge data show. That's more than three times the amount it generated in revenue.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.