Niko Bonatsos departs General Catalyst for new VC firm

Niko Bonatsos has departed General Catalyst, a venture capital firm, with plans to start a new early-stage venture capital firm. Bonatsos told TechCrunch that he intends to launch this new firm alongside partners, though he has yet to choose a name for the entity or begin fundraising. He declined to specify the size of his team, noting only that the individuals he is considering include founders and investors who are performing at the highest level of their fields.

According to Bonatsos, his exit from the firm was a mutual decision. Unlike his former colleagues, who declined to comment on their departures, Bonatsos described his tenure at General Catalyst as a highly positive experience that provided many valuable lessons. His departure comes as the firm transitions into what it describes as an investment and transformation business. This transition has included expanding beyond traditional venture capital into wealth management, private equity-style artificial intelligence roll-ups, and a Customer Value Fund that provides late-stage startups with nondilutive financing—capital provided without giving up equity—secured by recurring revenue.

Bonatsos’s departure follows a series of other partner exits from General Catalyst reported last year:

• Deep Nishar, who co-led the late-stage Endurance strategy.
• Kyle Doherty, who co-led the late-stage Endurance strategy.
• Adam Valkin, who co-led the early-stage fund alongside Bonatsos and Trevor Oelschig.

In his new venture, Bonatsos intends to pursue backing young founders, a strategy he claims to have identified several years ago. This focus on young founders is exemplified by Mercor’s founder, Brendan Foody, who is a college dropout. Bonatsos’s previous investments include backing the communication platform Discord and Mercor, which recently reached a $10 billion valuation. Investor Niko Bonatsos also intends to target consumer businesses, a sector he characterized as “underappreciated” in a market currently saturated with enterprise-focused AI startups.

Despite these partner departures, General Catalyst is continuing its seed strategy, which represents its early-stage venture capital investment approach. To support this, the firm recently hired Yuri Sagalov, a former Y Combinator partner who also founded Wayfinder Ventures, to lead its seed investing efforts in the U.S.

Why it matters

Bonatsos’s exit highlights the ongoing evolution of General Catalyst’s business model and the continued churn of high-profile investors in the U.S. venture capital landscape.