Nikos Bonatsos

Nikos Bonatsos is Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s largest VC funds with $3 billion in assets under management.

His passion is working with first-time technology founders with strong product instincts, who treat every decision as a learning moment. These are essential traits of entrepreneurs who build great companies.

Niko began his career as an investor looking for very early-stage consumer products and services that most people might perceive as crazy, funny, or even controversial; those strong reactions tell him there is a founder creating something disruptive. But he’s always looking for areas to learn about and is now equally as interested in investing in young companies working with emerging technologies and those that are applying consumer-grade experiences to business-focused services.

Niko believes technology exists to make our lives better. Combine this with a hot market, and billion-dollar companies can be created. General Catalyst companies he’s involved with include Audius, Brighter (acquired by Cigna), ClassDojo, Collective, Discord, Hive, Livongo Health [acquired by Teladoc (NYSE: TDOC)], Medely, Mercor, Pylon, Remote, Sleeper, Snap (NYSE: SNAP), Superplay [acquired by Playtika], and Wag!.

He graduated from Stanford (MS in Management Science and Engineering as a Fulbright Scholar), the University of Cambridge (M.Phil. in Manufacturing Engineering and Management), and the National Technical University of Athens (Dipl.-Ing in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). Niko also worked in Tokyo at the R&D headquarters for Yokogawa Electric Corporation. This random walk through the world has proven to be extremely helpful in his role as a venture investor.