Finance1 min read

Sequoia hits rewind, undoing 20 years of expansion

By · Via TechCrunch · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Sequoia Capital announced sweeping structural transformations in a memo titled “The Sequoia of Tomorrow,” merging its growth and early-stage divisions while ending its traditional Monday partner meetings. The firm is shuttering its London office, which was opened in 2020, to instead back European founders directly from the Bay Area. Additionally, Sequoia is eliminating both its Arc startup accelerator and its long-running Scouts program, which previously backed breakthrough companies like Uber and Stripe. Under the leadership of co-stewards Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, former partner Doug Leone has been re-engaged and former Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach has returned full-time.

Key points

  • The structural changes dissolve separate growth and early-stage divisions to build a lean…: The structural changes dissolve separate growth and early-stage divisions to build a leaner, flatter partnership model.
  • Internal leadership turnover concluded with former senior steward Roelof Botha cutting al…: Internal leadership turnover concluded with former senior steward Roelof Botha cutting all remaining ties after being voted out of his role.
  • Sequoia will manage future European investments directly from Silicon Valley rather than…: Sequoia will manage future European investments directly from Silicon Valley rather than maintaining dedicated local boots on the ground.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Sequoia Capital posted a memo to X on Wednesday morning titled “The Sequoia of Tomorrow” that’s full of surprises. The firm has raised roughly $10 billion in new funds, it says. It is also closing its London office, shutting down its Arc accelerator and its Scouts program, merging its early-stage and growth teams into one, flattening its partnership, and killing the Monday partner meeting.

The framing is forward-looking, but the messaging is very much about rewinding to an earlier time when the team was smaller and focused more narrowly on Silicon Valley.

Sequoia says as much itself. The firm describes coming out of a roughly 20-year expansionary phase during which it built multiple businesses in multiple geographies and says an unintended side effect was hierarchy. Nearly everything being undone here was built during that stretch, under a succession of stewards running from Doug Leone through Jim Goetz to Roelof Botha.

One of the most surprising developments here is that the firm is killing two programs that put Sequoia closest to young founders. Scouts, which Sequoia launched around 2009 and, anecdotally,…

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