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.