Monday, January 5, 2009

General Catalyst makes Sequeira a partner

By Mass High Tech staff

General Catalyst Partners of Cambridge says it has promoted Neil Sequeira, who is focused on General Catalysts’ investments in Internet and new media; software; consumer services; and network infrastructure companies, to partner.

Sequeira was initially brought on board by General Catalyst from Time Warner Investments to identify new media technology opportunities, officials said. He is now a board member of DECA, Elemental Technologies, Eons, Highwinds Network Group, Visible Measures, ViTrue, and ScanScout.

Sequeira said in 2009 he expects to add to his portfolio, which now includes eight companies. He said he will continue to invest in media companies, but also expects to expand his investment in core infrastructure companies like Portland, Oregon-based Elemental Technologies Inc.

General Catalyst led a $7.1 million first round for Elemental last July. Sequeira has a seat on the board.
 
"The real delivery and transmittal of [internet protocol] across multiple devices and networks is an area that continues to be ripe for innovation," he said. "Going forward you can build infrastructure businesses much more efficiently for three reasons: one, by tending to be more software based; two, using commodity hardware to build them; and three, because there has been a lack of innovation on the infrastructure side, you get customers up and running quite quickly."

Prior to General Catalyst, Sequeira was most recently managing director, technology, for Time Warner Investments, formerly AOL Time Warner Ventures. At Time Warner Investments, Sequeira was a board director or observer at portfolio companies Arroyo Video Solutions, BigBand Networks, Entropic Communications, Goldpocket Interactive, N2Broadband and Waterfront Media.

Prior to joining Time Warner, he led mergers and acquisitions for CMGI Inc. Previously, Sequeira was an associate with Goldman, Sachs & Co., and a consultant with Accenture Ltd.

In October, Sequeira participated in Mass High Tech’s Thought Leadership Roundtable on social media networking. He said Massachusetts’ proximity to New York and its wealth of experienced executives makes it an ideal place for new media start-ups.

“I think in 10 years from now we’ll have a great base of games, media, social media companies, and we’ll have continued strength in areas we’ve always had great strength (such as) enterprise software, storage and hardware,” he said during the October panel.