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U.S. venture capital giant General Catalyst<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n The capital constitutes around $4.5 billion for its \u201ccore VC funds,\u201d which spans seed and growth equity funding, while $1.5 billion is earmarked for its so-called \u201ccreation strategy<\/a>,\u201d which is focused on helping repeat or \u201cproven\u201d founders build new companies. An additional $2 billion is for \u201cseparately managed accounts\u201d \u2014 which are typically special investment vehicles created for a single institutional investor.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a global investment company that seeks to partner with the world\u2019s 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,\u201d General Catalyst CEO and managing director Hemant Taneja (pictured above), wrote in a blog post today<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> last year and, more recently, Venture Highway in India<\/a>.<\/p>\n General Catalyst now has more than $30 billion<\/a> in assets under management.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s announcement comes shortly after TechCrunch reported<\/a> that General Catalyst was working on a \u201ccontinuation\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, TechCrunch recently reported<\/a> that General Catalyst is gearing up to make<\/a> its first investment in Saudi Arabia, and that it now offers a financial product to both late-stage private companies and product companies that want it to capitalize their customer and marketing spend<\/a> separately.<\/p>\n General Catalyst\u2019s latest funding comes months after another giant fundraise by a U.S. venture firm: Andreessen Horowitz\u2019s announcement in April that it had closed on $7.2 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to TechCrunch, Jeannette zu F\u00fcrstenberg, who now heads General Catalyst\u2019s European business, said that 25% of the $8 billion raised would be allocated to Europe, across all its various\u00a0strategies.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe core thesis is to hone-in on talent at the earliest stages. We are a global transformation company with early-stage investment at its core,\u201d she said in a call with TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Following the merger of General Catalyst and her VC firm La Famiglia last year, she said the company wants to \u201cdouble-click on pre-seed and seed as one core bucket, where we want to drive all the platform capabilities and all the capabilities towards founders.\u201d<\/p>\n In relation to how it plans to execute its \u201ccreation\u201d strategy, she said the plan is to partner with large companies that are, for instance, \u201clooking to embed AI and looking to build a product\u2026 We are looking to co-develop and co-hatch products together with them\u2026 We\u2019ve already done that with Fever Energy<\/a>, a Scandinavian\u00a0climate tech company, because that will require a sort of more hybrid capital approach down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n She fleshed this out further, saying General Catalyst has engaged in what it likes to call \u201croll-ups\u201d: \u201cWe\u2019ve embraced different vertical sectors and functions from a company perspective.\u201d This includes Crescendo<\/a>, a call center software that has AI embedded<\/a> in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n As a firm, she said General Catalyst is doing things \u201cthe other way around.\u201d That means \u201cbuilding the tech stack\u2026 and then reaping the whole benefit from going full stack\u201d by embedding AI in an investment. \u201cWe are doing a similar playbook in Europe, where our existing network blends with that strategy and also blends with the talent ambition that we have here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n General Catalyst is also honing in on two core themes: what she calls applied AI and global resilience. \u201cOur belief system is that AI, at the core, is not a disruptive technology. It doesn\u2019t give you new distribution avenues. It basically gives you a transformation angle into existing categories.\u201d<\/p>\n This would translate into applying AI into sectors such as manufacturing, or supply chains.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at Europe, the benefit we can really derive from AI comes down to how it intersects with many of these vertical strengths that we have [in the country],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On global resilience, she said that in the wake of destabilizing issues such as the pandemic, wars, and the energy crisis, nations \u201ccannot afford to be at the mercy of others\u2026 We don\u2019t want to rely on China for the majority of the stuff that we cannot replicate here, right?\u201d<\/p>\n She pointed to the global shortage of antibiotics during the pandemic, for example. \u201cI think there is a very strong insight that we need to come closer to re-owning these core verticals. And this can be extended towards energy systems, defense etc. These are critical to us being able to maintain societies as they are, and maintain our sovereignty to a very large degree. So what are the fly-wheels we can activate, where can we back founders, connect them to established industry partners, and help them embed that.\u201d<\/p>\n To highlight her point, she singled out General Catalyst portfolio company Helsing<\/a>, a self-described AI defense company that has now entered partnerships with Airbus and Saab.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re in partnership with some of the largest European defense primes,\u201d said zu F\u00fcrstenberg. \u201cAnd there\u2019s a strong intersection that is driven to really bring the potential of AI into the sectors that we will think is key to resilience. AI and global resilience as two core themes are really coalescing to a very large degree.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nContinuation<\/h2>\n