4.0
3.7 
2.8 
2.8 
3.4 Avoid Chris Farmer and General Catalyst Information Thieves
Fund: General Catalyst
Posted by Anonymous on 2011-10-30
Avoid General Catalyst and Chris Farmer.
According to Chris, 50% of their seed stage investments are with their own cadre of entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs). They have invested in over 40 companies out of this seed fund and touch on a great many spaces. When I pitched him, sure enough there was a company in their portfolio with an EIR that was in a tangential space.
Our company is doing great, and there we were, sharing trade secrets and IP for an hour and helping guide them to a better place. And, they have a whole cadre of EIRs and fund quickly, so entrepreneurs share their IP with them only to have them jump-start their own version almost wholly owned by General Catalyst.
There are a lot of other posts from entrepreneurs who have pitched General Catalyst only to find a copycat emerge months later from their cadre of EIRs. I left my meeting with them with reservations and suspicion which is why I looked them up afterward. I definitely did not feel Chris or General Catalyst were trustworthy, and structurally the way they are organized is in conflict with entrepreneurs.
I wish I had read the other posts on The Funded before meeting with them.
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