Customer Story

From Fragmented Data Rooms to Unified LP Experience: How General Catalyst Modernized Co-Investment with Vessel

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Ryan Doherty — Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

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Featured Quote

"Getting to that institutional level has always been the goal. With Vessel, we finally have all the pieces in place to make it happen.”

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

About General Catalyst

General Catalyst is a multi-stage venture capital and growth equity firm with a 25-year track record of investing in transformational companies. With approximately 350 employees—35% of whom were hired in the past year—the firm operates across multiple fund strategies including venture, credit/evergreen, life sciences, and creation-style co-investments.

Headquartered in Boston with offices in San Francisco, General Catalyst has expanded through strategic acquisitions, including two venture firms and Summa Health, a hospital system. The firm also launched Percepto, an AI consulting company, demonstrating their commitment to staying at the forefront of technology adoption.

Under the leadership of CEO Hemant Taneja, alongside a seasoned investor relations team led by Ryan Doherty, General Catalyst manages a sophisticated LP base that spans institutional investors, family offices, and strategic partners across multiple fund vehicles and separately managed accounts.

Opportunity

As General Catalyst scaled its operations and expanded its co-investment program, the team recognized that their existing systems couldn't keep pace with institutional-grade demands. The firm was using Interlinks for fund data rooms, but frustration with the platform had reached a tipping point.

"Our previous system was messy and overcomplicated. It tried to do too much, which made everyday workflows harder than they needed to be."

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

The challenges extended beyond the data room itself. Video integration for portfolio reviews—a critical touchpoint with LPs—wasn't working reliably. The co-investment syndication process relied heavily on email workflows, creating friction in NDA management and document sharing.

With a large and growing LP base, General Catalyst faced a fundamental question: how do you scale 10x without 10xing the team? The firm needed a unified platform that could handle co-investment syndication, fund data rooms, portfolio review content, and SMA reporting—all while delivering the white-glove LP experience their sophisticated investor base expected.

When Intralinks announced a new version that didn't address these concerns, Ryan made a decisive call to his team: explore alternatives.

Solution

General Catalyst evaluated Vessel with clear criteria: the platform needed to be more than a point solution. It had to unify multiple workflows while improving the LP experience at every touchpoint.

"When it came time to upgrade our fund data room, Vessel was the clear choice. It has all the features we were looking for—without the complexity.”

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

The implementation began with co-investment syndication—three deals identified for the initial pilot. Ryan worked closely with Vessel's team to design workflows that matched General Catalyst's differentiated approach to LP partnerships. Unlike competitors who play hardball on terms, GC builds genuine collaborative relationships with their LPs, and the platform needed to reflect that philosophy.

What stood out was Vessel's AI-powered content generation. When Ryan uploaded memos and deal materials, the platform transformed them into polished investor-facing pages with minimal editing required.

"The generate content feature exceeded my expectations. I uploaded our memos, ran it, and the results were excellent.”

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

The Vessel team's responsiveness reinforced the partnership. Regular check-in calls, proactive support, and willingness to build custom solutions demonstrated an alignment that extended beyond a typical vendor relationship.

Mid-Story Quote

"The content generation tool is amazing. It saved me a ton of time.”

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

Results

Institutional-Grade Co-Investment Infrastructure General Catalyst now has a systematic platform for syndication that scales with their deal volume. Instead of managing LP participation through email threads, the team can track demand, manage allocations, and coordinate across a growing investor base—all from one interface.

Dramatically Improved LP Experience The feedback from investors has been consistently positive. The modern interface and seamless content delivery replace the clunky folder structures and broken video players of the legacy system.

"We've heard nothing but positive feedback on the investor portal, especially the data room and co-invest features.”

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

Time Savings Through AI-Powered Content Generation What previously required hours of manual formatting now takes minutes. The AI content generation feature transforms deal memos into professional investor-facing pages, freeing the team to focus on relationship-building rather than document assembly.

Unified Platform Across Multiple Use Cases Rather than managing separate systems for co-investments, fund data rooms, and portfolio reviews, General Catalyst is consolidating on a single platform. This creates a forcing function for LP engagement—once investors are onboarded for one use case, they're already in the system for the next.

Strategic Forcing Function for LP Onboarding The portfolio review data room, launching in May 2026, will bring every LP onto the platform. This creates a foundation for expanded engagement across fund communications, performance reporting, and future fundraises.

Emerging Investor Team Enablement General Catalyst's emerging investors—junior associates attached to each deal—will own content creation within Vessel. This distributes the workload while building institutional knowledge across the team.

Impact

For General Catalyst, Vessel represents more than operational efficiency—it's a strategic foundation for scaling their differentiated approach to LP partnerships.

Vessel helped us rethink how we operate—modernizing our workflows and driving adoption across the team at the same time.”

Ryan Doherty on the portfolio review vision

The firm's planned rollout extends well beyond co-investment. By Q2-Q3 2026, General Catalyst will migrate their fund data rooms from Interlinks to Vessel, creating a unified experience where LPs access co-investment opportunities, fund documentation, portfolio updates, and performance data through a single, modern interface.

The partnership has evolved over a full year of collaboration, building trust and alignment that positions both firms to move the industry forward.

"It's been a great year working with the Vessel team.”

Ryan Doherty Director, Investor Relations & Co-Investment, General Catalyst

For a firm that prides itself on going into real partnerships with their LPs—not playing hardball like some competitors—having an LP experience that reflects that philosophy is a competitive advantage in itself.