Discord and Mercor investor Niko Bonatsos has left General Catalyst and plans to start a new venture capital firm

After leading General Catalyst’s seed strategy for years, Niko Bonatsos has left the company. Bonatsos, known for his backing of IPO hopeful Discord and $10 billion startup Mercor, told TechCrunch that he intends to launch a new early-stage venture capital firm alongside “friends.”

Bonatsos is the latest investor to leave General Catalyst, a company that has recently expanded beyond the traditional venture model. Over the past few years, General Catalyst has unveiled a wealth management business, a strategy focused on PE-style AI operations, and a Customer Value Fund (CVF), which provides late-stage startups with non-dilutive funding secured by recurring revenue.

Other recent departures from General Catalyst include Deep Nishar and Kyle Doherty, who co-led the late-stage “Endurance” strategy, and Adam Falkin, who co-led the early-stage fund alongside Bonatsos and Trevor Oelschig, TechCrunch reported last year.

Unlike his former colleagues, who declined to comment on their departure, Bonatsos described his exit as a mutual decision, saying his time at GC was a “wonderful experience” that provided many “lessons learnt”.

Bonatsos said he has not yet chosen a name for his new company or begun fundraising. He declined to specify the size of his team, noting only that the individuals he is considering include founders and investors “at the top of their game.”

Some of the topics Bonatsos intends to pursue include supporting young founders, a trend he claims to have identified several years ago, before it became popular in the industry. In fact, many of the leading founders of the AI ​​wave are young and one of them is Merkur founder Brendan Foody.

Bonatsos is also interested in investing in founders launching consumer businesses, a sector he considers “underappreciated” in a market saturated with enterprise-focused AI startups.

Although General Catalyst has transitioned into what it calls an “investment and transformation company,” it continues to make bets at the seed stage. Last year, GC appointed Yuri Sagalov, a former YC partner who also founded Wayfinder Ventures, to lead the seed investment in the US.