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Sequoia Capital has raised about $10 billion in new funds even as it dismantles parts of the global operation it spent two decades building, CTech reported.
The venture capital giant, an early backer of companies from Apple and Google to Airbnb and Stripe, is closing its London office, ending its Arc accelerator and its Scouts program, and flattening its partnership structure. The overhaul is laid out in an open letter titled “The Sequoia of Tomorrow” that the firm posted to X on Wednesday morning, TechCrunch reported.
London closes, Europe stays on the map. The London office, opened in 2020, will shut and several employees will leave. “We simply don’t see the need for a local presence,” the memo says, adding that Sequoia will keep investing in European founders from its San Francisco Bay Area base. Luciana Lixandru, the firm’s first Europe partner, said she was offered a move to San Francisco and declined; she remains a partner and keeps her board seats.
Two well-known programs end. Arc, launched in 2022 as Sequoia’s answer to Y Combinator, gave early-stage founders $500,000 to $1 million up front. Scouts, started around 2009, gave founders and tech executives small checks to invest on Sequoia’s behalf, and it famously surfaced deals like Uber and Stripe. Ending both marks a bet on fewer, bigger swings.
The firm is also merging its early-stage and growth-stage investors into one team, flattening its management, and scrapping its traditional Monday partner meetings. “Founders shouldn’t have to adhere to our process,” the letter says. “We will do our best to adhere to yours.”
For a founder in London or Berlin, the message is blunt: one of Silicon Valley’s most famous doors now opens mostly from California. The changes come a year after Sequoia completed a generational leadership transition, and the firm says the quality of its investments matters more than the size of its footprint.
JBizNews Desk | Menlo Park
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