Sequoia Capital is closing its London office six years after opening it, and several people will leave the firm. The Silicon Valley investor announced the move on Wednesday in a memo posted on X, titled “The Sequoia of Tomorrow” and signed by its seven general partners.
The firm said the decision was not about the people in London.
“We simply don’t see the need for a local presence. We believe that Europe will continue to produce outlier founders and companies, and that we can continue to provide world class support from our home base in the Bay Area,” Sequoia wrote.
London is one part of a wider overhaul. Sequoia has shut its Arc accelerator and its Scouts programme. It has merged its early-stage and growth teams into one and dropped its Monday partner meeting. The memo also said it had raised about $10bn in new funds. We reported in August that Sequoia was putting $10bn behind AI and reindustrialisation.
The memo said a 20-year expansion across “multiple businesses in multiple geos” had created a hierarchy that “crept over into the investing team”. Sequoia said it had made changes that flatten the partnership.
Who stays in Europe
The London team had four partners: Luciana Lixandru, Julien Bek, Anas Biad and George Robson, Sifted reported. Lixandru joined from Accel in 2020 as Sequoia’s first partner in Europe. She said she was offered a move to San Francisco and turned it down.
“Europe is where my family is, and where I want to build,” Lixandru wrote on X.
She said she remains a Sequoia partner and will keep her board seats, while investing her own money in European founders. Bek is also staying in Europe.
“I’ll continue supporting the founders I work with and serving on my boards. There’s more to build, and I’m looking forward to what comes next,” Bek wrote on X, Sifted reported.
Biad is moving to San Francisco with the firm. He wrote on LinkedIn that he had been spending a lot of time with US founders, and that he would keep meeting founders in Europe. Robson wrote on LinkedIn that his focus was on supporting his founders and a smooth handover, and that he would share his next step later.
A change of plan
The closure reverses what Sequoia said only last year. Lixandru told Sifted then that the firm was set to hire more people in Europe.
Its European bets include Berlin defence company Stark, where Sequoia co-led a €500M round with Founders Fund in June. They also include David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence. Sifted reported that two of the firm’s San Francisco partners led the Ineffable deal.
Sequoia is not the first big US investor to leave London. Andreessen Horowitz shut its London office last year and Coatue closed its own in 2024, TechCrunch reported. TechCrunch also noted that Stephanie Zhan, an investor since 2015, has left to start her own firm. Jess Lee, who oversaw Arc, is now listed as an operator rather than an investor.
The firm admitted that the changes had a cost.
“It is scary to break something that’s already working just fine, and it is painful to say goodbye to great people,” the memo said.