4 weeks ago
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U.S. venture capital giant General Catalyst has announced a fresh $8 billion in funds as it looks to ramp up its investments in multi-sector early-stage startups globally, with a specific focus on the U.S., Europe, and India.
The capital constitutes around $4.5 billion for its “core VC funds” which spans seed and growth equity funding, while $1.5 billion is earmarked for its so-called “creation strategy” which is focused on helping repeat or “proven” founders build new companies. An additional $2 billion is for “separately managed accounts” — which are typically special investment vehicles created for a single institutional investor.
“As a global investment company that seeks to partner with the world’s most ambitious entrepreneurs to drive transformation, resilience, and applied AI, we believe this capital will turbocharge our investment theses across AI, defense and intelligence, climate and energy, industrials, healthcare and fintech,” General Catalyst CEO and managing director Hemant Taneja (pictured above), wrote in a blog post today.
Founded in 2000, General Catalyst has backed some of the biggest U.S. technology startups, including Airbnb, Instacart, Snap, Kayak, Stripe, and HubSpot, though it has backed numerous international companies too such as Deliveroo in Europe. More recently, General Catalyst has pursued global growth through merging with local entities, including La Famiglia in Europe last year and, more recently, Venture Highway in India.
General Catalyst now has around $25 billion in assets under management.
Today’s announcement comes shortly after reports emerged that General Catalyst was working on a “continuation” fund worth up to $1 billion, a mechanism through which it would continue to hold and invest in its portfolio companies beyond what would be a typical VC fund timescale — however, there is no word on whether that is still something under consideration.
Elsewhere, General Catalyst is also reportedly gearing up to make its first investment in Saudi Arabia.
General Catalyst’s latest funds are among the largest to emerge from a U.S. VC firm since Tiger Global’s $12.7 billion tranche more than two years ago, though it dwarves the $2.3 billion raised by Index Ventures earlier this year, as well as Andreessen Horowitz’s $7.2 billion.
Paul is a senior writer based in London, focused largely (but not exclusively) on the world of UK and European startups. He also writes about other subjects that he’s passionate about, such as the business of open source software. Prior to joining TechCrunch in June 2022, Paul had gained more than a decade’s experience covering consumer and enterprise technologies for The Next Web (now owned by the Financial Times) and VentureBeat. Pitches on: paul.sawers [at] techcrunch.com Secure/anon tip-offs via Signal: PSTC.08
Mike Butcher (M.B.E.) is Editor-at-large of TechCrunch. He has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder ThePathfounder.com newsletter; TheEuropas.com (the Annual European Tech Startup Conference & Awards for 12 years); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Coadec.com. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.
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