Since stepping up in 2021 to run General Catalyst, one of the US’s largest and most active venture capital firms, chief executive Hemant Taneja has taken a wide-ranging and unusual approach to investment in artificial intelligence.
The firm has backed some of the biggest start-ups in the sector, including Anthropic and Mistral. But it has also launched an “AI roll-up” strategy to buy mundane service businesses and inject them with AI, and acquired a hospital system last year that Taneja says can be revamped with technology.
General Catalyst’s backers have rewarded the voyage into uncharted territory, with the firm raising an $8bn fund last year.
In this conversation with the Financial Times’ venture capital correspondent George Hammond, Taneja describes how the firm is investing that pot amid an AI investment bubble, and the risks if AI is not developed responsibly.
George Hammond: Let’s start with General Catalyst’s approach. You describe the firm as “an investment and transformation company” and I wanted to break down your approach to AI in both those regards. How does a firm like yours make money from AI?
