US-based venture capital firm General Catalyst has hired Dipchand ‘Deep’ Nishar, previously an Americas-focused senior managing partner at telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s fund management subsidiary, SoftBank Investment Advisers (SBIA).
Nishar announced his intention to depart from SoftBank in September this year, having joined SBIA in 2015 to invest in enterprise software, healthcare and frontier technology developers on behalf of the corporate’s Vision Funds.
During his time working with the Vision Funds, Nishar led investments in portfolio companies including artificial intelligence software developer SambaNova, gene therapy developer ElevateBio, messaging platform developer Slack and biomanufacturer Zymergen.
General Catalyst has brought Nishar abroad in a managing director role which will entail increasing the firm’s investment scope to include areas such as enterprise software, biotechnology and life sciences.
Founded in 2000, General Catalyst targets early to growth-stage developers of innovative and digital transformation technologies. Its exits include short-term accommodation marketplace Airbnb, sales software provider HubSpot and Snap, owner of messaging app Snapchat.
