General Catalyst’s Anand Chandrasekaran quits, to focus on his AI startup Crescendo

Anand Chandrasekaran, a former Airtel, Meta, and Snapdeal executive, used to lead General Catalyst’s investments in the United States and India.

Anand Chandrasekaran, who was associated with General Catalyst for over three years, has stepped down as Partner, Moneycontrol has learnt.

Chandrasekaran will now serve as a Venture Advisor to the US-based investor as he intends to spend more time building his own artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Crescendo.

Chandrasekaran, a former Airtel, Meta, and Snapdeal executive, used to lead General Catalyst’s investments in the United States and India, a market that is increasingly becoming more important for venture investors across the world.

He was formally appointed to head India investments in January 2022 when funding activity was at a high. Banking on his appointment, General Catalyst said it will keep increasing its focus on India, the world’s third largest startup ecosystem.

In an interview to Moneycontrol in April 2023, General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja even said that 10-20 percent of its $4.6 billion fund will be used to back Indian startups.

The commitment was understandable as General Catalyst, like several other global funds, views India as an attractive market. More recently, it even held talks to acquire Venture Highway, a homegrown early-stage investor, and make further inroads into India. That was after General Catalyst had already invested an estimated $250 million across 25-30 startups in India over the past 3-4 years, as per reports.

Cred, Uni, Spinny, Orange Health, FarMart, and Loop Health are some of its bets in India. Globally, the 24-year-old company has backed payments startup Stripe, social media firm Snap, French artificial intelligence startup Mistral, rental firm Airbnb, and several more.

Chandrasekaran’s decision to step down is crucial because General Catalyst is also in the midst of closing a new $6 billion fund for tech startups, The Financial Times had reported earlier this week. A portion of the fresh capital will be directed towards Indian startups, the report added. However, with Chandrasekaran stepping down, it remains unclear who will lead these investments.

Moneycontrol had first contacted Chandrasekaran on February 5 for comments on his departure but messages went unanswered. General Catalyst did not respond to Moneycontrol’s emails seeking details on April 23 and 29. The story will be updated once the company responds.

Chandrasekaran’s LinkedIn profile however confirms that he was formerly a partner at General Catalyst and is now only a Venture Advisor. It also mentions that he is now the founder and president at Crescendo.

Launch of Crescendo

Crescendo was launched in January 2024 through General Catalyst's Creation Fund that develops and launches companies. General Catalyst had announced a $800 million Creation Fund in 2022, wherein investors take a hands-on approach to build startups with entrepreneurs and executives from the very beginning.

Some of the other companies that were 'hatched' under General Catalyst include Kayak (acquired by Priceline Group/Booking Holdings), Livongo (acquired by Teladoc in 2020), Demandware (acquired by Salesforce in 2016), and Datto (acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2017).

In January, General Catalyst said it has teamed up with Alorica founder Andy Lee, former Zendesk executive Matt Price and former Genesys CTO Slava Zhakov – all co-founders of Crescendo along with Chandrasekaran.

Alorica, a prominent customer experience solution provider, is also serving as a strategic investor to Crescendo. The founding team has helped build four companies in this sector and taken them to over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue, the firm said.

The company is building a vertically integrated AI-native contact centre business that aims to help contact centres deliver better customer experience with a combination of AI and human expertise.

Crescendo’s first product is c7o.ai that powers both voice and messaging assistants, enabling them to engage in meaningful customer conversations. It also features an LLM (Large Language Model) manager with integration to OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

“This project brings together General Catalyst’s work in Creation and AI with our growing work in the US-India corridor” the venture firm said in January 2024.