General Catalyst to invest $1B into healthcare companies | Modern Healthcare

General Catalyst has raised another $8 billion and more than $1 billion of it is slated for healthcare-focused companies, the venture capital firm said Thursday.

About $750 million is earmarked for General Catalyst’s health assurance fund that focuses on early-stage companies. Other funds dedicated to healthcare will be invested in late-stage, venture-backed companies and companies it co-creates with entrepreneurs.

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In total, General Catalyst will invest “well over a billion” dollars of the new funding into healthcare, said Managing Director Chris Bischoff. The company, which raised $670 million for its health assurance fund in July 2022, will look for companies that can deploy artificial intelligence-based solutions and address clinical, operational and administrative challenges within healthcare, he said.

“We’re still very early in this journey, so there's no end of opportunities,” Bischoff said. “We think the change will accelerate from here, partly because we now have the tools and the technologies to take on challenges we didn't have before. It’s just more apparent that change must happen in order to increase the resilience of the sector.”

General Catalyst is one of the most active investors of digital health startups, having funded upwards of 150 companies in healthcare. Some of its biggest investments in the sector include Commure, HarmonyCares, Maven Clinic, Transcarent and Hippocratic AI.

In November 2022, it launched the health assurance network, a think tank with more than 20 health system partners including Intermountain Healthcare, WellSpan Health, Universal Health Services, Cincinnati Children's, UC Davis Health and OhioHealth.

General Catalyst also made a unique investment in January when its portfolio company, Health Assurance Transformation Corporation, signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Summa Health, a deal that is pending. That entity is run by former Intermountain CEO Dr. Marc Harrison, who left the Salt Lake City-based health system for the venture capital firm in August 2022.

Bischoff said General Catalyst also will invest in life sciences companies, and mentioned drug development and clinical research as areas of opportunity.

General Catalyst also invests in companies within the defense, climate, industrial and financial technology industries.

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