Sequoia London Office Shuts as Firm Raises $10B and Ends Arc

The Sequoia London office is closing just six years after it opened, and that’s only one part of a broad overhaul the venture firm laid out on Wednesday. In a memo posted to X titled “The Sequoia of Tomorrow,” the firm said it has raised roughly $10 billion in new funds while shutting down its Arc accelerator and its long-running Scouts program.

The memo frames the changes as a return to what Sequoia says it does best: high-conviction, highly selective venture investing. “Putting more energy behind fewer people and things means better support for the founders we back,” the firm wrote, a year after its generational leadership transition.

Why the Sequoia London Office Is Closing

Sequoia opened in London in 2020, and several people will leave the firm as a result of the closure. “This is not about the team – they are excellent. We simply don’t see the need for a local presence,” the memo says. Sequoia argues that Europe will keep producing outlier founders and that it can support them from its home base in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Not everyone is moving. Luciana Lixandru, Sequoia’s first partner in Europe, said she was offered a move to San Francisco and chose to stay, according to Dealroom. She remains a partner, keeps her board seats and will also invest personally in European founders.

Arc and Scouts Shut Down

The most surprising cuts hit the two programs that kept Sequoia closest to very young companies. Scouts, launched around 2009, gave founders and operators small checks to invest on the firm’s behalf, and it famously helped bring Uber and Stripe to Sequoia, TechCrunch reports. Arc, started in March 2022 as Sequoia’s answer to Y Combinator, ran seven-week cohorts for pre-seed and seed startups that received $500,000 to $1 million up front.

One Team, No Monday Meeting

Sequoia is also dropping its split between “Early” and “Growth” teams. “There is no more ‘Early & Growth’. There is only Sequoia,” the memo says, which the firm expects to make life easier for founders as they move from stage to stage. It has also simplified the Sequoia Capital Fund, flattened its partnership and ended its weekly Monday partner meeting cycle.

The firm is now owned and run by seven general partners: Alfred Lin, Pat Grady, Andrew Reed, Shaun Maguire, Konstantine Buhler, Sonya Huang and David Cahn. Their stated focus areas include AI, space, biology and reindustrialization.

What It Means for Founders

The roughly $10 billion war chest arrives as AI startups keep pulling in huge rounds, from OpenAI’s latest funding to fal’s new raise. Sequoia is betting that a smaller, more concentrated firm will win more of those deals.

For European founders, the message is clear: building a relationship with Sequoia now runs through the Bay Area, much like deals such as Stripe’s purchase of OpenRouter keep pulling the AI economy toward Silicon Valley.