Jeannette zu Fürstenberg

Who they are

Jeannette zu Fürstenberg is President and Managing Director at General Catalyst — she founded La Famiglia VC in 2016, co-authored the SPARTA Papers on European strategic autonomy, and won the German Business Book Prize 2025.

Person

Jeannette started with a Law degree from the University of Cologne, then a Master's at ESCP Business School in Paris, further studies at Oxford, and a doctorate in Business Administration (Entrepreneurship and Art) from the Free University of Berlin — an unusual academic arc that sits between jurisprudence, continental business, and philosophy. Early career took her through Ernst & Young, AXA, and Synthesis before she founded Producers at Work, an independent film production company, then pivoted decisively into venture. In 2016 she co-founded La Famiglia VC in Berlin, a fund built on a specific thesis: connecting established European industrial companies with young digital disruptors — backing what became marquee names like Helsing and Mistral. She joined General Catalyst in 2023 when it acquired La Famiglia, stepping into the role of President and Managing Director for Europe inside a firm that was itself transforming from a conventional VC into a broader financial services platform. She's a board member at Helsing, Mistral AI, Legora, and Parloa, sits on the Board of Governors at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and in 2025 launched the EU AI Champions Initiative — a coalition of over 140 European companies advancing AI adoption. Her public output is substantial: the SPARTA Papers on European defense and strategic autonomy, a SPIEGEL bestseller ('Das Neue Land'), a German Business Book Prize winner ('Wie gut wir sind, zeigt sich in Krisenzeiten'), articles in Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftsdienst, and her own podcast FAST & CURIOUS. The through-line is a consistent bet that Europe needs institutional-scale conviction in sovereign tech — and she's been building the coalitions to back it.

Company

General Catalyst's most recent major move is co-leading Helsing's $1.8 billion Series E in July 2026 — a round that doubles as a statement about the firm's defense-tech conviction and Jeannette's own board position there. In the months prior, the firm executed a $6.3 billion take-private of American Express Global Business Travel and acquired Summa Health hospital in Akron, Ohio — the first time a VC has purchased a hospital outright — signaling a deliberate expansion well beyond traditional venture. It is currently in talks to raise around $10 billion across new venture and growth funds, building on its October 2024 raise of $8 billion (including $4.5 billion for core venture). The firm manages over $43 billion in assets as of December 2024, with a portfolio of more than 800 companies including 98 unicorns, 32 IPOs, and 215 acquisitions. Its Customer Value Fund — a non-dilutive, investment-grade credit vehicle for customer acquisition — is a structural bet on rewriting how VC capital flows to scale-ups, deployed most recently in the $150 million Factorial Series D in June 2026.

Market

General Catalyst competes directly with Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator at the top of the multi-billion-dollar mega-fund tier, with all three firms racing to lead large AI rounds and build platform-scale operations beyond pure venture. The firm's 'global resilience' thesis — anchoring investments in AI, defense, healthcare, and manufacturing across the US, Europe, and India — is shaped by US-China technology competition, export controls, and the geopolitical premium now attached to sovereign AI infrastructure. In Europe specifically, regulatory complexity around AI adoption and the broader push for digital sovereignty have created a lane General Catalyst is explicitly betting on, with Jeannette's network and the EU AI Champions Initiative positioned as a structural moat there.

Network

Jeannette works directly under Hemant Taneja (CEO, General Catalyst) and alongside General Catalyst colleague Thomas Schardt. Her board roles put her in regular contact with Arthur Mensch (CEO, Mistral AI), as well as the leadership of Helsing, Legora, and Parloa. At the policy and institutional level she co-organized the European Digital Sovereignty Summit with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, and moderated an Applied AI roundtable co-hosted by Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier — a contact map that sits well above the typical VC orbit.

Hemant Taneja· CEO and Managing Director, General Catalyst
Thomas Schardt· General Catalyst colleague
Arthur Mensch· CEO, Mistral AI
Judith Dada· Co-led La Famiglia VC fundraise (€250M)
Friedrich Merz· German Chancellor
Emmanuel Macron· French President

How they likely show up

Founded La Famiglia in 2016 and built it to acquisition by General Catalyst in 2023 — suggests she thinks in multi-year institutional arcs, not deal-by-deal.
Active public writer across Handelsblatt, Wirtschaftsdienst, SPARTA Papers, and two books — comfortable translating complex theses into public argument, likely values intellectual rigor in conversation.
Doctorate in Business Administration with a focus on Entrepreneurship and Art alongside a Law degree — brings a structural, first-principles lens to problems rather than pattern-matching from prior deals alone.
Launched the EU AI Champions Initiative with over 140 member companies — operates through coalition-building and institutional leverage, not just check-writing.
Board seats at Helsing, Mistral AI, Legora, and Parloa simultaneously alongside her General Catalyst role → runs a high-context, high-demand calendar; values prepared, substantive counterparts.
Possibly — the FAST & CURIOUS podcast and speaking circuit (Davos, Munich Security Conference, London Tech Week, Slush) suggest she actively shapes narratives at scale, not just within her portfolio.

Conversation tips

→ Come with a specific view on European AI sovereignty — she has written two books and co-authored the SPARTA Papers on this; generic takes will land flat.
→ Reference Helsing's $1.8 billion Series E or the EU AI Champions Initiative by name — these are live, high-stakes bets she's personally invested in, and she'll know immediately if you've done the work.
→ Ask about the La Famiglia-to-General Catalyst transition and what changed — she went from founder of a boutique European fund to President at a $43 billion platform; the arc is substantive and she'll have a real answer.
→ Don't treat defense-tech as a peripheral topic — Helsing, the SPARTA Papers, and her Munich Security Conference role make it central to her thesis, not a sideline.
→ She bridges policy, capital, and operators at the highest level (chancellors, presidents, CEOs); avoid framing questions as purely investment-mechanical — the geopolitical and industrial dimension matters to her.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Helsing's $1.8 billion Series E in July 2026 — she co-led it as a General Catalyst deal and sits on Helsing's board, so it's both a live professional priority and a vindication of a thesis she's held since La Famiglia.
Reference the SPARTA Papers — she co-authored strategic autonomy papers for Europe in defense and resilience through the Munich Security Conference, a rare move for a VC that signals she sees policy architecture as part of the investment work.
Bring up 'Wie gut wir sind, zeigt sich in Krisenzeiten' winning the German Business Book Prize 2025 — it's her most recent public recognition and a concrete entry point into her views on European resilience that goes beyond a typical investor conversation.

Discovery questions

The EU AI Champions Initiative brings together over 140 companies — what's the hardest coordination problem inside a coalition that size, and where does it actually move the needle versus Brussels?
General Catalyst went from acquiring La Famiglia to co-leading Helsing's $1.8 billion round in under three years — how has having a $43 billion platform behind you changed the kind of bets you can make in Europe versus what was possible at La Famiglia?
The SPARTA Papers argue for European strategic autonomy in defense and resilience — where do you think the gap between that policy vision and actual capital deployment is still the widest?

Avoid

Don't open with general commentary on 'the European startup ecosystem' — she operates at the level of specific companies, specific policy instruments, and named geopolitical dynamics, and she'll disengage quickly from landscape-level generalities.

Make it yours