Sequoia Capital

Sequoia Capital is, by most measures, the most consistently successful venture firm in history, with a portfolio that has produced Apple, Google, NVIDIA, Cisco, Oracle, YouTube, WhatsApp, Stripe, Airbnb, and a long bench of category-defining companies. The US firm restructured in 2023 and 2024, separating its US operations from its former Sequoia China (now HongShan) and Sequoia India and Southeast Asia (now Peak XV) practices, so the partnership today is a US-and-Europe-focused firm with a tighter geographic footprint than the historical brand suggested. For healthcare and AI founders, Sequoia has been one of the most aggressive AI investors of the post-ChatGPT cycle, having backed OpenAI, Harvey, Glean, Sierra, and a deep bench of AI infrastructure and applications companies, and the firm has been a selective but serious healthcare investor with portfolio names including Natera, Guardant Health, Doximity, and various clinical-AI and digital health bets. Healthcare is not a dedicated standalone practice in the way that it is at General Catalyst, but the firm has a healthcare bench led by partners including Pat Grady, Sonya Huang, Constantine Buhler, and others who have engaged with healthcare-AI deals. Stage focus is seed through growth, with seed checks through the Sequoia Scout and Sequoia Arc programs (a structured early-stage cohort that effectively serves as the firm’s seed-stage practice), Series A and B leads in the ten-to-fifty-million range, and growth checks scaling into the hundreds for breakout companies; Sequoia’s restructured fund vehicle (a single open-ended evergreen fund called the Sequoia Capital Fund) means the firm can hold positions through and beyond IPO. Geography is US-headquartered with offices in San Francisco, New York, and London after the 2024 restructuring. Founders who should approach Sequoia are technical founders building enterprise or consumer software with an AI core, including healthcare-AI founders whose business has software economics; the firm is particularly receptive to founders with deep technical backgrounds and to second- and third-time founders. Founders who should look elsewhere are clinical-stage biotech, devices, services-heavy care delivery, and pure DTC consumer health without a software core; while the firm has occasionally done deals in adjacent areas, these are not core categories. The entry path that works best is a warm intro through a portfolio CEO, through Sequoia’s Scout program, or through Sequoia Arc; cold inbound through the website does work better at Sequoia than at most peer firms, and the firm’s deal-sourcing team reads inbound seriously, but warm intros materially compress the diligence timeline. When you pitch, lead with the founder’s reason to believe and the technical or scientific wedge; Sequoia partners decide on conviction, and the firm has historically funded ambitious, technically-rigorous teams over operationally-polished but incrementally-positioned ones. Caveats: Sequoia is brand-name and the firm’s mark is one of the most valuable signals in venture, which means valuations are at the high end of the market and ownership expectations are real; Sequoia will sometimes pass on rounds where it cannot get its target ownership; partner involvement post-investment is high and partners typically take board seats; the firm runs a tight, opinionated process, and founders who want a passive lead should look elsewhere.