US-based venture capital firm General Catalyst, which makes early-stage and growth equity investments globally, has acquired Indian VC firm Venture Highway to bolster its presence in the country.
The acquisition will see the entire Venture Highway team joining General Catalyst as part of General Catalyst India. As a result, Venture Highway will cease to exist.
The firms did not disclose financial terms of the deal.
“This merger goes beyond Venture investing, aiming to nurture deep tech talent, foster innovation, and accelerate digitization across industries in India, driven by a shared set of values, culture, and ambitious goals,” General Catalyst said in a release.
The merger will reimagine venture investing for India's unique opportunities and challenges, foster India-US collaborations for talent and tech synergies, digitize and expand core GDP-driving sectors like manufacturing and develop industry-specific incubation and partnership strategies to create global enterprises from India, it said.
The new Indian entity will join General Catalyst’s global fund, which is in the process of raising $6 billion, as per a report in Financial Times. It is looking to invest anywhere between $500 million and $1 billion in India, Hemant Taneja, chief executive officer and managing director of General Catalyst told The Economic Times.
Venture Highway was co-founded in 2014 by Neeraj Arora, former chief business officer of WhatsApp and an angel investor. In 2018, Priya Mohan joined Arora after exiting her edtech startup Vidyartha, which was acquired by Byju’s in 2016. The VC firm wrote the first cheques for companies such as Meesho, Moglix, Applied Intuition, BetterPlace, and Chalo.
General Catalyst was founded in 2000. It has invested in several Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Airbnb Inc., Stripe Inc., Snap Inc., Guild and Hubspot. In India, it started making investments from 2019. Some of its portfolio companies include CityMall, Cred, Uni and StockGro. It manages more than $25 billion in assets across the world.
The Silicon Valley-based firm had made a similar move in Europe wherein it merged its operations with Berlin-based venture capital fund La Famiglia.
