General Catalyst

“Hyperscale performance. Network freedom.” Arrcus, Inc. is partnering with NVIDIA to push the frontier of networking innovation further for AI-driven environments. This AI era calls for flexible networking to optimize the potential of compute-intensive cycles. We believe Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) is the differentiated routing and switching platform that answers this call. “Arrcus’ leading networking software coupled with Nvidia’s AI infrastructure will help deliver maximum efficiency to customers from data centers as well as their edge and cloud computing environments.” -Shekar Ayyar, Arrcus CEO We’re proud to deepen our partnership with Shekar and the Arrcus team by investing in their $30M round, led by NVIDIA. More from VentureBeat (full piece linked in comments) ↓

Aven, the credit card backed by home equity, has saved its customers more than $100M in interest since its founding. The team’s expansive vision to provide an accessible, efficient, and transparent avenue to capital aims to save consumers even more via new categories like auto-backed cards and refinance. HELOCs can take a month to secure from a traditional bank. With Aven, that time is reduced to as little as 15 minutes and customers save more than 50% on monthly interest rates. “We believe there’s no reason for anyone who owns an asset and has good credit history to use unsecured credit. Full stop. Unsecured credit is expensive and unhealthy. With our asset-backed credit cards, we give consumers credit for what they own - saving them thousands of dollars without sacrificing convenience.” -Sadi Khan, Aven’s CEO We’re proud to co-lead Aven's $142M Series D and welcome Sadi and the entire team to the GC family. Explore more from the Aven team (full release linked in comments) ↓

90% of startups are investing in AI, but only 54% have it in production—so what's holding them back?* Today, I’m excited to share the findings of our recent AI Adoption survey here General Catalyst. Deep and I surveyed nearly 100 startup CTOs across stage and sector to get a real-time pulse check on AI adoption across their companies during the first half of this year. Maybe not surprisingly, we found remarkable transformation, driven by unprecedented advancements and substantial financial milestones. But, that’s only half the story… Our findings also highlight several non-obvious trends, including: 📈 61% of startups plan to increase their AI investments—on average by 1.5x in the next six months 💊 The healthcare sector boasts a 100% AI adoption rate, yet lags in production ⚙ Larger startups with $100M+ revenue are leading AI deployment at 73% 👥 Employee use of AI tools is skyrocketing—from 27% to 42% in just six months …and much more. Explore more data and our detailed analysis in the full post (link in comments) and comment how your company is leveraging AI — or what’s holding you back. (*Sourced from our survey data)

Adam P. inherited his father’s Apple enthusiast gene, which led him to start his first Apple IT support venture while he was only in high school. This passion eventually fueled the founding of Kandji, the MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution for Apple fleets that empowers secure, productive work at GC portfolio companies like Ramp, Canva, Remote, and many more. "In our view, Kandji brings a unique combination of innovative solutions and fiscal value to their customers with their sophisticated approach to Apple endpoint management and security. We believe Kandji has a truly differentiated approach, and we are excited to embark on this long-term partnership with Adam and team.” -GC's Deep Nishar While we’ve been working with Kandji to supercharge their growth via Pranav and our CVF team, we’re incredibly proud to double down on our partnership and lead their $100M financing round. Why we invested by Deep, Pranav, Christopher, Alex, & Amanda (full piece linked in comments) ↓

The democratization of robotics is here, thanks to Standard Bots. “Robotics has been the unlock for the repatriation of manufacturing, but the potential has been hindered by two major barriers: cost and flexibility.” -GC’s Quentin Clark Standard Bots effectively removes these barriers by bringing affordable, AI-powered robotic arms designed for variable and complex applications to market. These robots are incredibly user-friendly—whether you’re an operator and don’t know how to code, or whether you’re an engineer and want to utilize their flexible APIs and SDKs. Automating redundant, dangerous tasks allows operators to focus on the higher-order, more impactful processes in manufacturing and beyond. We’re proud to lead their Series B and welcome Evan, David, and the entire team to the GC family. More from Bloomberg on the Series B raise led by Quentin & Max (full piece in comments) ↓

A defense tectonic shift is afoot. Helsing, a cutting-edge European AI company, is on the frontlines protecting democracies and heralding a European RenAIssance. We’re proud to double down and lead their €450M Series C. Our conviction in Torsten, Gundbert, Niklas, and the Helsing team has only grown with time. They embody the ambition, values, and talent it takes to realize a dynamic, resilient Europe — and world. As our Global Resilience thesis underlines, modernizing the defense tech stack has never been more urgent amid escalating power competition and re-globalization. Helsing heeds this call for deterrence with a software-first, pan-European approach that has earned the trust of governments, such as Germany, France, UK, and Ukraine. We believe this well-deserved prime status reaffirms that collaboration between governments, industry, and technology is critical to meeting this tectonic moment and forging the path toward defense transformation and enhanced security on a global scale. “Since its inception, we have been able to watch the Helsing team execute with a great sense of urgency to build AI-based defense capabilities for European democracies. I have deep conviction that Helsing is on the path to becoming a global category leader. As we witness battlefronts on European soil for the first time in decades, we believe the role of companies like Helsing has never been more critical.” -GC’s Jeannette zu Fürstenberg With its bold vision, Helsing defines the European RenAIssance, and we’re honored to be on this journey with them. More from Jeannette, Paul, Alexa, and the Global Resilience team (full post linked in comments) ↓

Equity compensation is critical for aligning employees with a company’s long-term goals and fostering a culture of ownership. Yet, data on equity refresh design is scarce. Key questions on eligibility, timing, and grant size persist among founders and Boards. We are excited to share the results of General Catalyst's 2024 Equity Refresh Survey which compiles over 160 data points on key questions including eligibility, timing, and grant size. The findings show that, in this era of capital efficiency, companies are judicious with equity dilution while still rewarding top performers. Highlights: - 87% of companies prioritize individual performance for refresh grants  - 25% or fewer of employees receive refresh grants annually  - Refresh grants are typically 25% or less of current new hire benchmarks - Nearly half of refresh grants have no vesting cliff Access the full report → https://lnkd.in/gruPasKh Please share how your company rewards top performers and issues refresh equity in the comments below!

“We bring the doctor’s office to you.” That’s the promise of HarmonyCares, a value-based provider of in-home primary care services available in 15 states and counting. “Healthcare today lacks a platform at scale that comprehensively delivers services to our most complex patients in the convenience of their home. HarmonyCares is well on this journey and actively manages our most vulnerable patients in an economic model where incentives are aligned. We are excited to welcome Matthew Chance and the broader HarmonyCares team to our Health Assurance ecosystem.” -GC’s Chris Bischoff We’re proud to co-lead HarmonyCares’ $200M funding round and welcome Matt and the entire team to the GC family.  More from Healthcare Innovation (full piece in comments) ↓

The AI-powered legal assistant platform is here, thanks to Wordsmith AI. Ross, Volodymyr, and Robbie combined their collective experiences as exited founders, lawyers, and technologists to build Wordsmith, the secure AI platform for legal and compliance operations. Wordsmith handles the overload of routine tasks — from reviewing contracts to processing questionnaires — empowering legal teams to prioritize the high-value work that inspired them to enter the profession in the first place. We’re proud to invest in their $5M seed round and welcome Ross, Volodymry, Robbie, and the entire team to the GC family.  More from TechCrunch (full piece linked in comments) ↓

Ready to go live? We believe Gen-Z is creating the future of livestreaming. In their latest piece that’s part of our ‘The Consumer Internet is Dated’ series, Niko and Jonny detail the shifts in this ecosystem including… 1. Evolving the livestreaming business model “As livestreaming continues to advance, we believe that platforms will find new ways to evolve their business model to focus on niche verticals, expand the formats they offer, and create opportunities for offline monetization.” 2. Changing how viewers and streamers engage “We see additional opportunity in interactivity, and we believe future livestreaming platforms will lean into this area to expand their reach.” 3. The role of AI in viewer engagement “We believe that AI has the potential to fundamentally improve livestreaming across the engagement stack…AI may also be able to improve personalization in livestreaming. For example, as AI inputs become increasingly multimodal, they may be able to better understand streams, and enhance the viewer experience by providing additional context based on what streamers do.” And much more. Explore the future of livestreaming (full post in comments) ↓