Venture capital firm General Catalyst, based in Silicon Valley in the United States, has made a significant move to expand its presence in the Indian startup ecosystem by acquiring New Delhi-based early-stage investor Venture Highway.
The acquisition is part of General Catalyst’s strategic plan to deploy a substantial capital of USD 500 million to USD 1 billion in early-stage and growth capital investments in Indian startups through the newly formed entity, General Catalyst India.
“The combined capabilities of the two firms will allow us to be much more hands-on and effective going forward in India. I am especially excited about bringing our co-creation capabilities to India,” said Hemant Taneja, chief executive of General Catalyst, in a post on X on Thursday.
Venture Highway, which raised $78.6 million for its second fund in 2020, has investments in social-commerce startup Meesho, B2B e-commerce platform Moglix and HR-tech startup BetterPlace.It was co-founded in 2014 by Neeraj Arora, the former chief business officer at WhatsApp.
Co-founder Priya Mohan joined the team in 2018.General Catalyst, which has backed startups such as graphic design platform Canva, travel marketplace Airbnb and fintech Stripe, manages assets worth over $25 billion globally.
Recently, several VC firms such as Accel and Nexus Venture Partners have raised upwards of $500 million each to invest in India.
India’s economic, political and strategic agency in the world is growing, supported by both macro and micro tailwinds, said General Catalyst in a blogpost on its website. It added that it is inadequate to look at India as yet another “investment destination” or “a vast geography”.
“The country’s diverse culture, consumer psychology and deep structural idiosyncrasies need a level of understanding that numbers often do not do justice to,” the firm said.
