Many of the companies that it has invested in have gone on to become tech giants, such as Apple, Klarna and WhatsApp.
Competition is heating up among investors to work with the most promising startups earlier, and the field of the founders hoping to build and launch companies is getting wider and wider, so the firm is taking a new approach. It is launching a new program called Arc, which is a catalyst that will seek out and then work with a group of about 15 startups in 8-week sessions.
The startup will get an upfront investment of $1 million from Sequoia, mentoring on company design from partners and operators affiliated with the firm, and a field trip to a legendary company to see it all in action. The first on-site visit will be to Klarna, where the first cohort will spend time with CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, as well as David Sandstrom, David F, and Camilla Giesecke.
The program will start on May 23 and those interested can apply from today until April 8. Arc's first cohort will be run out of London, where they will work for one week in the city, then five weeks of working from home, and finally one week on-site. The first week in Silicon Valley will be the start of subsequent cohort.
Jess Lee, a partner in the firm's Silicon Valley office, and Luciana Lixandru, a partner in the firm's London office, will co-run Arc. It will be its unique selling point, apart from opening the door to working with one of the top VCs in the world, that will be the key.
As Lixandru describes it, Sequoia will source candidates through an open process. Warm introductions are not factored in, and anyone can apply to be evaluated, screened and accepted or rejected on equal terms, in part using the data science that the product team has built internally to evaluate potential investments.
The idea here is that, while the tech world has some tried and tested corridors to feed the tech and startup community, Silicon Valley, certain universities, and previously holding an important role at another successful tech company are three of the most stereotypical and leaned-on of these.
While all early startups can benefit from evidence-based guidance and mentoring from Sequoia, there is a prime example.
Lixandru, who has made her name over the years by tapping into less likely regions, said that having open applications will benefit European founders even more. I've been privileged to work with many of the start ups in non-typical technology hubs.
Launching Arc is an important competitive measure given what other firms are doing. SoftBank is making some moves to get in closer with younger startups, such as with its own accelerator effort called Emerge, which it is running in partnership with Speedinvest. Tiger Global made its name by writing big checks for later-stage businesses, but now it is also looking for earlier stage investments and doing a lot more in Europe. Early investments in the region are being made by the company.
Some of the logic of open applications is to tap into the long tail of founders, who may not know someone or have the right qualifications, and that will hopefully bring a more diverse mix of people to the table. That has been a slogan in the tech world for a while, but often feels like lip service, so the more programs that are built around the concept, the better.
There will be some lines drawn in that process. I was initially told by Lixandru that Sequoia would be evaluating Russian companies as part of the mix, which would be an interesting twist given how many companies, including VCs, are currently away from the country due to the war in Ukraine.
She said that they would accept applications from all over Europe, including Russia. It raised $400 million in January and is now valued at $17 billion.
While it might back Russian founders in Arc, they are only considering those who are based outside of the country.
Company design is a concept and approach that Sequoia has been honing for quite some time, with modules that it has built both for later-stage and others for early-stage startups covering concepts that range from the tangible to the intangible.
With Arc, that content will be put to work in a new way, specifically to train founders who are just starting to find their feet.
In an industry that has a very high fail rate, it's not surprising that the word that people return to when describing what they're trying to do is "enduring."
Lee said in the interview that company design is more than just company building. It is the outlier mindset of really thinking about the scale of ambition of actually building for a long time. It's really powerful to be able to tap into that hive mind and that brain trust.
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