General Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with more than $43 billion in assets under management, has announced plans to invest $5 billion in India over the next five years, sharply expanding its push into the country’s startup ecosystem less than two years after its merger with local firm Venture Highway.
The pledge, unveiled at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Friday, will target startups in artificial intelligence, healthcare, defense technology, fintech and consumer technology. The announcement marks a significant increase from the $500 million to $1 billion the company had previously earmarked for India.
India, the world’s most populous country with more than a billion internet users, is positioning itself as a major AI investment destination. New Delhi aims to attract over $200 billion in AI infrastructure investment over the next two years as it hosts the India AI Impact Summit featuring companies including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.
“India will create the next generation of global platform companies,” said General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja (pictured above), adding that the company sees Indian founders developing technology for markets that serve huge populations.
General Catalyst said it sees India’s biggest AI opportunity in large-scale real-world deployment rather than building so-called frontier models. The company cited the country’s government digital infrastructure, huge domestic market and talent pool in the country’s deep services as reasons for this view.
The push comes as India’s AI ambitions accelerate. At the summit, Adani Group and Reliance Industries, led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, announced plans to invest more than $200 billion together to build AI data center infrastructure in the country. OpenAI has separately partnered with the Tata Group’s TCS—one of India’s largest technology companies—to develop a 100-megawatt AI data center as part of its expansion of the Stargate infrastructure project. In recent months, global tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft have also outlined tens of billions of dollars in cloud and artificial intelligence investments in the country.
General Catalyst is building its India portfolio in fast delivery e-commerce, health tech and deep tech with investments including Zepto, PB Health, Raphe, Jeh Aerospace, Pronto and Ayr Energy.
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“This investment allows us to operate at a different scale in India,” said Neeraj Arora, CEO of General Catalyst for India, Middle East and North Africa, adding that the company aims to support companies from early stage to public markets.
General Catalyst said it is developing a framework to accelerate large-scale AI adoption in priority sectors in India, with the aim of helping to transform pilot projects into full deployments. The company’s General Catalyst Institute also works to build government-industry partnerships in the country.
