General Catalyst

General Catalyst's GRAIL (Global Resilience Aligned Initial Listing) has completed its IPO. There are many amazing founders building companies in aerospace and defense, industrials, energy, and manufacturing who are committed to driving global resilience. We are excited to partner with one such mission driven team to access the public markets via the GRAIL to build an enduring Global Resilience company. We at GC are committed to innovating to meet the needs of the founders. Traditional SPACs are misaligned: sponsors get paid on deal closure, not company outcomes. We built a different structure — the GRAIL — designed to align incentives around long-term company building, not just transaction completion. Fun fact: We first tried this six years ago, right after Covid. We believed the moment demanded a different kind of capital for companies building global resilience. The market wasn't ready. We gave the money back. But we always knew the product would find its time. I am grateful to Paul Kwan, Christopher Kauffman and many others at GC who worked to make this a reality. Paul (CEO) and Chris (CFO) will lead GRAIL and we have put together an outstanding board with Barry McCarthy, Fareed Zakaria and Tom Linebarger. https://lnkd.in/gkBnhkTT

Congratulations to our 11 portfolio companies named to this year's Forbes AI 50. These teams are shaping the frontier of AI across research, infrastructure, and the products used by millions. Anthropic Applied Intuition Black Forest Labs Chai Discovery Glean Legora Mercor Mistral AI Physical Intelligence Skild AI Together AI Thank you for letting us build with you.

I've been posting less and writing more. I've found it helpful to slow everything down and take the time for proper reflection. Today I'm putting out a review of the last quarter: Growing AI Anxiety Turning LLMs into Computers Anthropic and the Department of War Iranian Conflict The Incoming Techlash It's easy to feel like the response to this is for tech to "get tough" But I want to encourage the next generation to do something simple: keep your soul Read here: hemant-taneja.com

When we first wrote about AI-enabled roll-ups—acquiring service businesses and transforming them with applied AI—the thesis was global and the proof points were early. The team spent the last two years turning that thesis into execution in Europe, building the playbook at Dwelly, mapping markets, and sharpening what sets this model apart from PE. Europe's fragmentation, succession dynamics, and decades of underinvestment in technology are the conditions this strategy was built for. Today we published the European chapter by Zeynep Yavuz-Willson, Marc Bhargava, and Jeannette zu Fürstenberg. The global thesis now has a distinct European edge. Link in comments.

Swiping a credit card takes one second. Processing a health insurance claim takes 30 days. Yuzu's founders came from fintech and are rebuilding health plan administration from the ground up to close that gap. We have seen this movie before. The last generation of fintech infrastructure unlocked a watershed of innovation in global commerce. We believe Yuzu can do the same for healthcare and that’s why we’re leading their $35M Series A. Congrats to Max Kauderer, Ryan Lee, Russell Pekala, and the entire Yuzu team. In the comments: watch Alex Tran's full conversation with Max and Ryan, and read why we invested by Alex, Caitlin Donovan, and Tyler Olkowski.

Building a truly global firm takes people who can carry everything we stand for into new markets and make it real. Zeynep Yavuz-Willson is one of those people. I'm happy to announce Zeynep has been promoted into the partnership at General Catalyst. Zeynep joined us in 2022 with a rare combination: operator instincts, real fluency in growth investing, and a point of view on Europe that was both deeply local and globally ambitious. Her path to GC wasn't a straight line - she moved from growth equity to operating, then back to investing - and that deliberate detour shows in how she works with founders. As she puts it, she didn't think she could ever understand a founder's mindset without having been an operator herself. In a few years, Zeynep helped shape our growth investing strategy in Europe, built out our AI roll-up approach on the continent, and was instrumental in integrating La Famiglia - helping establish GC as a real presence and brand across European markets. She has earned command of the entire GC capital stack (venture, Customer Value Fund, and Creation) and is exceptional at bringing all of our capabilities together to create the conditions for founders to capture the power law. Congratulations, Zeynep.

AI is creating an era of abundance. The data center is its foundation. Legacy data centers waste more than 30% of their electricity before it ever reaches a processor. Daniel Kultran built Claros to solve this by reimagining power delivery from chip to grid. We backed Claros last year and are proud to deepen that relationship by co-leading their seed round today.

KP Reddy is a legend in construction tech, spending more than two decades as a founder, operator, and investor in the industry. Today, we're proud to announce the launch of Zero RFI, our latest AI-enabled roll-up, acquiring the best businesses in one of the last major industries to have its AI moment. Every RFI (Request for Information) on a construction project is a sign something slipped. We're on that journey with KP aiming to get that number to zero. More in comments from Paul Kwan, Marc Bhargava, Adrian Stehnkuhl and Sarah Ascherman.

Max Junestrand had no legal background. So he cold messaged 100 lawyers on LinkedIn, took them to lunch, and paid their hourly rate just to learn. That was three years ago. Today, Legora serves tens of thousands of lawyers across 800 customers in 50+ markets. We're tripling down on Legora's Series D with one of the most ambitious teams we've seen, now accelerating their U.S. expansion.

Individual investors deserve better. Markets close right when working people want to invest, brokers can take huge cuts from trades, and other inefficiencies can force costly renewals that eat into returns. That's why we're leading QFEX's seed round as they use modern technology to give individual investors the same tools as institutional traders. Founders Annanay Kapila and Joshua Wharton are building a platform where investors can trade directly with each other, 24/7, without paying broker fees. Their mission is to create a fairer market while eliminating unnecessary costs for traders. "QFEX is cracking the code on 24/7 traditional asset trading, while aiming to solve rollover problems that can plague futures traders. Not only that, but QFEX is expanding access to traditional market participation. When Cambridge mathematicians who've built systems for Citadel and Tower Research decide to build the exchange layer from scratch, we pay attention. Some opportunities require you to rebuild the entire stack—this is one of them." -GC’s Yuri Sagalov