Sequoia Capital, a VC firm that invests in startups in the energy, financial, enterprise, healthcare, internet, and mobile industries, has announced the launch of two new funds — a $750M (approximately €643M) early-stage fund targeting Series A startups and a $200M (approximately €171M) seed fund.

The Series A fund is aimed at startups that have found their product-market fit and are ready to grow, reports TechCrunch

With a funding amount of €690M, it matches the firm’s earlier fund from three years ago, showing that Sequoia sees steady deal opportunities at this stage.

On the other hand, the seed fund targets early-stage companies that have not yet developed a product or generated revenue, which are riskier but can offer significant returns.

Supporting visionary founders

The funds reinforce Sequoia’s continued focus on supporting visionary founders at the earliest stages, building on a legacy that includes backing companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Stripe, and Wiz.

The firm highlights that this move supports its commitment to “the next generation of outlier founders at the start of their journey.”

“There is something magical about forming partnerships in the earliest days and then witnessing their evolution,” says the VC firm.

Sequoia said it seeks founders from any background, around the globe, who “see possibility where others see limits, with the unshakable grit to turn impossibility into reality.”

In a series of theme statements from its early-stage investment team, the firm highlighted several areas of interest, including:

  • Consumer-facing video and image models, as well as the evolving infrastructure layer for applications.
  • Security and observability domains
  • Network and data centre security in the evolving AI infrastructure space
  • AI-driven commerce, voice interaction industries and digital asset solutions for regulated finance.
  • Hardware and physical-AI frontier, and the large market of AI services and deployment.

Sequoia Capital in Europe

The VC firm says it sees Europe as one of the most promising regions for building global companies.

“The European founder pool has never been stronger. A new wave of repeat entrepreneurs and alumni from breakout scaleups are bringing something special to the table: hard-won judgment from battle-tested experience, world-class product taste honed through real market cycles, and the muscle memory that only comes from taking companies from zero to global scale,” says Luciana Lixandru, Partner at Sequoia Capital.

The announcement comes a few weeks after Lixandru highlighted Europe’s potential for building strong companies, citing examples like Revolut and Trade Republic at the Sifted Summit in London.

Lixandru also mentioned a growing interest in robotics in Europe, supported by top universities.

Additionally, she predicted success for stablecoin ventures, emphasising Europe as a premier location for fintech innovation, reports Sifted.

To utilise the opportunity, the firm will be hiring additional people, adds the report.

Sequoia’s investment team in Europe consists of Lixandru and partners George Robson, a former Revolut employee; Julien Bek, previously with Accel; and Anas Biad, who used to work at Silver Lake.

Sequoia Capital: Building legendary companies

Sequoia Capital is a global venture capital firm that partners with founders to build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond.

Its investments include transformative companies such as Apple, Airbnb, Stripe, and Nvidia.