Bessemer Venture Partners raises $5.75B to double down on AI bets

Bessemer Venture Partners just closed $5.75 billion in new capital, one of the largest single fundraises in venture capital this year. The firm is splitting the haul into two vehicles: $1.75 billion earmarked for seed and early-stage deals, and $4 billion for a newly created growth-stage platform designed to write bigger checks into companies that are choosing to stay private longer. The message from Bessemer’s partners is blunt. AI-native companies are reaching $100 million in annual recurring revenue faster than any technology category in history, and the firm wants enough dry powder to back them from first check to late-stage expansion. Where the money is going Bessemer has been building its AI portfolio since 2022, deploying more than $3 billion into over 260 companies focused on everything from compute infrastructure to enterprise applications. Roughly 70% of those bets landed at the earliest stages, from pre-seed through Series A, which is where the new $1.75 billion fund will continue to operate. The firm’s existing portfolio includes Perplexity, the AI search engine that has positioned itself as a challenger to Google, alongside Anthropic, the safety-focused lab behind the ...