Sequoia Retracts Global Ambitions, Cuts London Office
Original: Sequoia hits rewind, undoing 20 years of expansion
Why This Matters
Two top VCs pulling out of London signals a broader retreat from global VC expansion bets.
Sequoia Capital announced Wednesday it raised ~$10B in new funds while closing its London office, shutting down its Scouts and Arc accelerator programs, and merging early-stage and growth teams — a sweeping retreat from 20 years of expansion.
In a memo titled 'The Sequoia of Tomorrow' posted to X, Sequoia Capital outlined a dramatic organizational reset. The firm raised approximately $10 billion in new funds but simultaneously dismantled much of the infrastructure it built over two decades under Doug Leone, Jim Goetz, and Roelof Botha.
The Scouts program — launched around 2009 and widely copied across the industry — is being shut down. It famously channeled small checks through founders and operators, with scouts including Sam Altman (who brought Stripe to Sequoia) and Brian Chesky of Airbnb. Arc, Sequoia's Y Combinator rival launched in March 2022, is also closing. It had offered pre-seed and seed companies $500,000 to $1 million per cohort.
The London office, opened in 2020, is gone too. Partner Luciana Lixandru, Sequoia's first European hire poached from Accel, declined a relocation offer to San Francisco. She says she stays a partner and will keep board seats while investing personally in European founders. 'Europe is where my family is, and where I want to build,' she wrote on X.
The firm frames the changes as a return to a leaner, Silicon Valley-focused model — fewer programs, a flattened partnership, and no more Monday partner meetings. The firm acknowledges the expansion created 'unintended hierarchy.' The timing is striking: Andreessen Horowitz also recently shuttered its London office.