General Catalyst, the Powerhouse Venture Firm, is considering an IPO, Axios reported Friday morning, stating ‘Multiple Sources’.
Techcrunch has contacted the company’s managing partner, Hemant Taneja, for comment. In the meantime, those who follow the General Catalyst process will not be surprised by the prospect.
Founded 25 years ago when a small Cambridge, Mass.-based risk area, General Catalyst (GC) started with $ 73 million in capital obligations. A decade later, armed with balloon shipping assets and pre-ipo deployment in software companies such as Demandware and Brightcove, Taneja and follow-up partner Neil Sequeira, set up a store in a charming yellow building with white trim in Palo Alto. There, GC quickly left its mark in the Bay Area, software deals that are reminiscent of the successes of the east coast, while they also forged deep ties with Y combinator who paid off. In 2011, the company achieved an interest in Airbnb. In 2012, it aimed to support every Y combinatororstup Sight unseen.
In the same year, in July 2012, GC led the series B -Ronde for Stripe -now the most successful alum of Y Combinator by appreciation, even if the fintech giant claims that it has ‘has’No immediate plans‘To become public.
In the meantime, GC itself has grown exponentially. Although Sequeira left In 2015 to start his own store, GC today has a vast team with 20 managing directors, more than $ 30 billion in assets and offices from San Francisco to Bengaluru. It is also extensively much further than the traditional venture investing. As we noticed in October after a conversation with Taneja for one podcastThe company is almost unrecognizable from its former self. Among other things, movements has launched the financing products, a business management company rolled out, is busy acquiring a small health care system in OHIO and bought two smaller venture companies.
A question that Axios asks – and it is a good one – is whether GC will be the very first company that will be public. It is not only a question whether the company decides to move forward, but whether it only talks about an offer speeds up the plans of other heavyweight companies such as Andreessen Horowitz, which seem to have their eyes at the same price.