Discord and Mercor investor Niko Bonatsos leaves General Catalyst, plans new venture capital firm

After leading General Catalyst’s seed strategy for years, Niko Bonatsos has left the company. Known for backing IPO hopeful Discord and $10 billion startup Mercor, Bonatsos told TechCrunch he plans to launch a new early-stage venture capital firm alongside “friends.”

Bonatsos is the latest investor to exit General Catalyst, a company that has recently expanded beyond the traditional venture capital model. Over the past few years, General Catalyst has unveiled a wealth management business, a strategy focused on PE-style AI roll-ups, and a Customer Value Fund (CVF), which provides late-stage startups with non-dilutive funding secured by recurring revenue.

Other recent departures from General Catalyst include Deep Nishar and Kyle Doherty, who co-led the late-stage “Endurance” strategy, and Adam Valkin, who co-led the early-stage fund alongside Bonatsos and Trevor Oelschig, TechCrunch reported last year.

Unlike his former colleagues, who declined to comment on their departure, Bonatsos described his departure as a mutual decision, saying his time at GC was a “great experience”, which allowed him many “learnings”.

Bonatsos said he has not yet chosen a name for his new business or started fundraising. He declined to specify the size of his team, noting only that the people he’s considering include founders and investors “at the top of their game.”

Among the themes Bonatsos plans to pursue include supporting young founders, a trend he claims to have identified several years ago, before it became popular in the industry. Indeed, many of the leading founders of the AI ​​wave are young and include college dropouts, like Mercor founder Brendan Foody.

Bonatsos also wants to invest in founders who are launching consumer companies, a sector he considers “underappreciated” in a market saturated with enterprise-focused AI startups.

Although General Catalyst has become what it calls an “investment and transformation company,” it continues to make bets at the seed stage. Last year, GC hired Yuri Sagalov, a former YC partner who also founded Wayfinder Ventures, to lead seed investments in the United States.