General Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based venture company with over $43 billion in operating assets, announced that it will invest $5 billion in India over the next five years. Less than two years after merging with local venture company Venture Highway, we are significantly expanding our presence in the Indian startup ecosystem.
The commitment, unveiled at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Friday, targets startups in artificial intelligence, healthcare, defense technology, fintech and consumer technology. The announcement marks a significant increase from the company’s previous allocation to India of $500 million to $1 billion.
India, the world’s most populous country with over 1 billion internet users, is positioning itself as a major AI investment destination. New Delhi aims to attract more than $200 billion in AI infrastructure investment over the next two years by hosting the India AI Impact Summit, which will feature companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
“India will build the next generation of global platform companies,” said General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja (pictured above), adding that the company is uniquely positioned to enable Indian startups to develop technologies for markets that serve a huge population.
General Catalyst said he sees India’s biggest AI opportunity in large-scale real-world deployments rather than building so-called frontier models. The company cited the digital infrastructure built by the country’s government, its vast domestic market and its deep service talent pool as reasons for its view.
The push comes as India’s AI ambitions accelerate. At the summit, conglomerate Adani Group and billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries announced plans to invest a combined $200 billion to build domestic AI data center infrastructure. OpenAI has separately partnered with Tata Group’s TCS, one of India’s largest technology companies, to develop a 100-megawatt AI data center as part of the expansion of the Stargate infrastructure project. In recent months, global technology companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft have also planned tens of billions of dollars in cloud and AI investments in the country.
General Catalyst has been building its India portfolio across fast delivery e-commerce, medtech and deep tech through 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, India, Middle East and North Africa, General Catalyst, 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 across priority sectors in India, with the goal of turning pilot projects into full deployments. The company’s General Catalyst Institute has also been working to build government-industry partnerships in the country.
