Announcements

General Catalyst Team Promotions

Published
April 7, 2016
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We at General Catalyst believe in backing big, world shifting ideas. In their earliest stages, they are not obvious to most and often come from the places we least expect them. But they do, without fail, start with people — those with an outsized sense of curiosity and unwavering conviction.

The key to success for us at GC is having a team of lifelong learners that’ll go deep to find the innovators in even the most obscure spaces. Once we’ve connected with those innovators, we then become the best partners possible for them — whether that’s through mentorship, guidance, networking, or investment. At GC, we’re fortunate to be represented on both coasts by people who are motivated by exactly what it takes to make our firm and our portfolio companies successful. Today, we’re honored to have the opportunity to acknowledge several of our colleagues by announcing their promotions, including Niko Bonatsos to managing director.

Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director

Niko joined GC in the beginning of 2011 as an associate and was promoted in 2013 to principal. In 2015, he was promoted to venture partner, and today, he is now a managing director at General Catalyst. From the start, Niko never has relied on simplistic indicators of success. Instead, he focuses on finding entrepreneurs with strong product instincts and a seemingly infinite capacity to learn. In the consumer space, a product can be weird or even controversial, but if people are thinking about it, Niko wants to understand why.

Over the past several years, Niko has developed a reputation for being an incredibly understanding and involved mentor to young founders. Niko’s innate sense of what’s next in consumer-facing technology is a powerful complement to the skill set of our team of managing directors. That openness to fresh, forward-thinking ideas has led to his involvement in several significant companies for us, like ClassDojo, RealtyShares and Snapchat, that are having outsized impact on the way we learn, invest, communicate, and have fun today. Niko’s leadership and foresight will allow us to be even better collaborators to the most promising entrepreneurs out there today.

Deepak Jeevankumar, Partner

Deepak joined GC in 2010 as a senior associate. In 2013, he was promoted to principal. With a background in building large-scale distributed systems at Sun Microsystems, Deepak brings extensive and deep technical experience in both hardware and software to the firm. His fundamental understanding of infrastructure and critical areas like big data, storage, and cybersecurity has contributed to many successful investments for GC in companies like Altiscale, Anomali, DataGravity, Illumio, Minio, Menlo Security and Push Computing (acquired by MobileIron).

Spencer Lazar, Partner

Spencer joined General Catalyst in 2013 as a principal. Since joining GC, he’s fully immersed himself in the incredibly vibrant “Silicon Alley” community and has been an important champion in launching our office in New York City. His focus largely has been on marketplace and network-based approaches to transforming new industries from finance to fitness. He helped lead GC’s investments in ClassPass, FundBox, WayUp, Giphy, and L2. He also spearheads the firm’s involvement with Major League Hacking, the largest organizing body of student hackathons in the world.

Gabe Ling, Partner

Gabe joined General Catalyst in 2004 as an associate, was promoted to vice president in 2010 and then again to principal in 2012. Gabe has leveraged his experience working with early and growth stage companies to help entrepreneurs build industry-defining businesses. Focused on finding opportunities where GC can be uniquely helpful to a company’s growth, Gabe has led or been directly involved in investments in Oceans Healthcare, OGSystems, Datto, DataLogix (acquired by Oracle), Humedica (acquired by United Healthcare), CLEAResult (acquired by General Atlantic), BBN Technologies (acquired by Raytheon), and Reveal Imaging (acquired by SAIC). These days, he spends most of his time exploring how software and data analytics are transforming the rapidly evolving digital health space.

Join us in congratulating Niko, Deepak, Spencer, and Gabe. Together, our team’s best work is yet to come.

Published
April 7, 2016
Author
No items found.
Share
#
min read

We at General Catalyst believe in backing big, world shifting ideas. In their earliest stages, they are not obvious to most and often come from the places we least expect them. But they do, without fail, start with people — those with an outsized sense of curiosity and unwavering conviction.

The key to success for us at GC is having a team of lifelong learners that’ll go deep to find the innovators in even the most obscure spaces. Once we’ve connected with those innovators, we then become the best partners possible for them — whether that’s through mentorship, guidance, networking, or investment. At GC, we’re fortunate to be represented on both coasts by people who are motivated by exactly what it takes to make our firm and our portfolio companies successful. Today, we’re honored to have the opportunity to acknowledge several of our colleagues by announcing their promotions, including Niko Bonatsos to managing director.

Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director

Niko joined GC in the beginning of 2011 as an associate and was promoted in 2013 to principal. In 2015, he was promoted to venture partner, and today, he is now a managing director at General Catalyst. From the start, Niko never has relied on simplistic indicators of success. Instead, he focuses on finding entrepreneurs with strong product instincts and a seemingly infinite capacity to learn. In the consumer space, a product can be weird or even controversial, but if people are thinking about it, Niko wants to understand why.

Over the past several years, Niko has developed a reputation for being an incredibly understanding and involved mentor to young founders. Niko’s innate sense of what’s next in consumer-facing technology is a powerful complement to the skill set of our team of managing directors. That openness to fresh, forward-thinking ideas has led to his involvement in several significant companies for us, like ClassDojo, RealtyShares and Snapchat, that are having outsized impact on the way we learn, invest, communicate, and have fun today. Niko’s leadership and foresight will allow us to be even better collaborators to the most promising entrepreneurs out there today.

Deepak Jeevankumar, Partner

Deepak joined GC in 2010 as a senior associate. In 2013, he was promoted to principal. With a background in building large-scale distributed systems at Sun Microsystems, Deepak brings extensive and deep technical experience in both hardware and software to the firm. His fundamental understanding of infrastructure and critical areas like big data, storage, and cybersecurity has contributed to many successful investments for GC in companies like Altiscale, Anomali, DataGravity, Illumio, Minio, Menlo Security and Push Computing (acquired by MobileIron).

Spencer Lazar, Partner

Spencer joined General Catalyst in 2013 as a principal. Since joining GC, he’s fully immersed himself in the incredibly vibrant “Silicon Alley” community and has been an important champion in launching our office in New York City. His focus largely has been on marketplace and network-based approaches to transforming new industries from finance to fitness. He helped lead GC’s investments in ClassPass, FundBox, WayUp, Giphy, and L2. He also spearheads the firm’s involvement with Major League Hacking, the largest organizing body of student hackathons in the world.

Gabe Ling, Partner

Gabe joined General Catalyst in 2004 as an associate, was promoted to vice president in 2010 and then again to principal in 2012. Gabe has leveraged his experience working with early and growth stage companies to help entrepreneurs build industry-defining businesses. Focused on finding opportunities where GC can be uniquely helpful to a company’s growth, Gabe has led or been directly involved in investments in Oceans Healthcare, OGSystems, Datto, DataLogix (acquired by Oracle), Humedica (acquired by United Healthcare), CLEAResult (acquired by General Atlantic), BBN Technologies (acquired by Raytheon), and Reveal Imaging (acquired by SAIC). These days, he spends most of his time exploring how software and data analytics are transforming the rapidly evolving digital health space.

Join us in congratulating Niko, Deepak, Spencer, and Gabe. Together, our team’s best work is yet to come.