General Catalyst to invest $5 billion in India’s startup ecosystem over 5 years

General Catalyst has announced plans to invest $5 billion in India over the next five years, marking one of the largest capital commitments by a global venture firm to the country’s startup ecosystem.

The announcement was made at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi.

The firm said the capital will be deployed across seed to growth-stage startups, with a focus on platform-defining companies in artificial intelligence, healthcare, defence technology, fintech and consumer technology. The commitment represents a sharp increase from the $500 million to $1 billion it had previously earmarked for India.

General Catalyst, which manages more than $43 billion in assets under management, expanded its India presence in 2024 through a merger with Delhi NCR-based Venture Highway. Following the merger, it raised $8 billion in fresh capital for its Fund XII to back seed and growth-stage startups globally.

“India will build the next generation of global platform companies,” Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst, said at the summit, adding that Indian founders are uniquely positioned to develop technology for markets serving enormous populations.

Neeraj Arora, CEO for India, the Middle East and North Africa at General Catalyst, said the new commitment would allow the firm to operate at a different scale in India and support companies from early stage through to the public markets.

Focus on large-scale AI deployment

The investment comes at a time when India is positioning itself as a major destination for AI capital. Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that India is set to attract more than $200 billion in investments towards AI over the next two years.

General Catalyst said it sees India’s biggest AI opportunity not in building frontier models but in large-scale real-world deployment. The firm cited the country’s government-built digital public infrastructure, vast domestic market and deep services talent pool as structural advantages.

Through the General Catalyst Institute, the firm has also been working to build government-industry partnerships in India and is developing a framework to accelerate AI adoption across priority sectors, with an aim to convert pilot projects into full-scale deployments.

Qualcomm said it plans to invest $150 million in India’s technology and AI startup ecosystem through Qualcomm Ventures. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association mobilised Rs 500 crore in venture capital commitments for deployable AI solutions across enterprise and public-impact sectors.

On the infrastructure front, Adani Enterprises said it plans to invest about $100 billion to build renewable energy-powered AI-ready data centres by 2035. Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said Jio Platforms, along with Reliance, will invest Rs 10 lakh crore in AI over the next seven years.