Hemant Taneja

Hemant Taneja is the CEO and managing director of General Catalyst, a venture capital firm with investments in Stripe, Snap, and Mistral, among others. Taneja has been CEO and managing director since 2021. Under his leadership, General Catalyst has Assets Under Management (AUM) of over $27.3 billion; raised almost $8 billion in 2024 to invest in technology start-ups across industries including defense, space, climate, fintech, and healthcare; bought a hospital and partnered with others to trial new models of care under the Health Assurance Transformation Corporation (HATCo); and expanded internationally, merging with European investor La Famiglia and Indian investor Venture Highway.

Investments

Taneja's investments include Stripe, Snap, Anduril, Grammarly, Gusto, and Samsara. He invested in Hippocratic AI, an LLM designed for healthcare that was launched in 2023. Hippocratic CEO Munjal Shah said that he and Taneja came up with the idea for the startup together.

Taneja also founded two health-focused companies: Livongo (co-founded), which was later acquired by Teladoc Health in an $18.5 billion merger, and Commure (valued at $6 billion), which later merged with Athelas.

Under Taneja's leadership, General Catalyst raised an $8 billion fund, marking one of the largest in the venture capital industry. This fund aims to support sectors such as healthcare, climate technology, and AI. Reports on the fund highlight Taneja's approach to broadening the firm's investment reach and reinforcing its position in the global market.

General Catalyst, guided by Taneja, has committed $1 billion toward investments in healthcare innovation, focusing on partnerships that aim to improve healthcare delivery through technology.

Responsible Innovation

In 2023 Taneja co-founded a nonprofit, the Responsible Innovation Labs, that partnered with the U.S. Commerce Department to lead an initiative to encourage early-stage startups to develop AI responsibly: the Responsible AI Initiative. In November 2023, Taneja shared that over 35 venture capital firms and 15 companies had signed a set of "Responsible AI" commitments authored by the Responsible Innovation Lab. The nonprofit also published the Responsible AI Protocol, described as a "how-to playbook".

Taneja has emphasized the need for responsible AI practices within the industry, advocating for ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks. In interviews, he discusses AI's potential to reshape industries and stresses the importance of adopting responsible standards, as reflected in General Catalyst's role in the Responsible AI Initiative, which supports ethical AI development for early-stage startups.

Books

Taneja wrote the following books:

* ''Intended Consequences: How to Build Market-Leading Companies with Responsible Innovation'' (2022)
* UnHealthcare (2020),
* ''Unscaled'' (2018)

Philanthropy

Taneja and his wife are members of the Giving Pledge. By signing the pledge, they commit to donating the majority of their wealth in their lifetimes or after their death.

In 2018, Taneja gave a gift in support of MIT.nano, the new center for nanoscience and nanotechnology at MIT. His donation created the Shiv and Santosh Taneja Innovation Alcove (named for his parents).

Taneja also helped build the Khan Lab School, a school that uses the MIT systems thinking approach for elementary education. He serves on the Stanford School of Medicine Board of Fellows, and the board of trustees for Northeastern University. He is also the co-founder and chairman of Advanced Energy Economy (now Advanced Energy United).

Early life and education

Taneja and his family moved from India to Boston, Massachusetts when he was in high school. Taneja later attended MIT, where he earned three undergraduate and two graduate degrees.

References

Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)

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