What Sequoia Announced On 4 November
Luciana Lixandru was offered a move to San Francisco and said no. Sequoia's first European partner, hired from Accel in 2020, wrote on X that Europe is where her family is and where she wants to build. The office she opened is the one Sequoia is now closing.
The closure came in a memo the firm posted to X on 4 November titled The Sequoia of Tomorrow. It sets out a pullback after what Sequoia calls a roughly 20-year expansion across several geographies.
| Change | Detail |
|---|---|
| New funds | About $10 billion, roughly EUR 8.9 billion |
| London office | Closed, six years after opening in 2020 |
| Arc accelerator | Closed. Launched in March 2022, it paid $500,000 to $1 million per company |
| Scouts programme | Closed after about 17 years |
| Early and growth teams | Merged into one |
| Monday partner meeting | Ended |
The memo's line on Europe is short: we simply don't see the need for a local presence. It adds that Europe will keep producing outlier founders and that Sequoia can support them from the Bay Area.
Who Stays In Europe
Most of the London partners are staying on the continent, but that is not the same as staying in Sequoia's deal flow. Reports agree on Lixandru and on Anas Biad and differ on the other two.
| Partner | Reported outcome |
|---|---|
| Luciana Lixandru | Stays in Europe, remains a partner, keeps her board seats and invests personally. Backed Trade Republic, Pennylane and Rillet |
| Julien Bek | Stays in Europe. Backed Revolut, Miro, Attio and Dust. Whether he remains at Sequoia was not confirmed |
| George Robson | Reported as staying in Europe, with his role at the firm unclear |
| Anas Biad | Moves to California and stays with Sequoia |
Sequoia is the third large US investor to leave London in three years. Coatue closed its office in 2024 and Andreessen Horowitz shut its London office in 2025, less than two years after opening it.
What Changes For A European Founder
The money hasn't left Europe, but the person deciding on it has. A founder in Berlin, Paris or Warsaw raising a growth round from Sequoia will now pitch partners nine hours behind, and a London founder eight. Calls land in the founder's evening, and the partner who argues for the deal on Monday no longer has a Monday meeting to argue in.
Arc's closure matters most at the start. It was one of the few routes by which a European pre-seed company could get Sequoia money and attention at once, and Scouts was another. Both are gone.
Our view is that this raises the value of a European lead investor. Local funds are getting bigger as the US firms step back. Creandum, an early backer of Lovable, raised $750 million on 2 November for its largest fund. A round led from Stockholm, Paris or London, with a US firm following, is now the more likely shape for a European Series B than the reverse.
If Sequoia Is Already On Your Cap Table
Your contract rights don't change because an office closed, but your contacts might. Pro-rata rights, information rights and any board seat sit with the fund, not with the partner who signed, so they continue.
What you should ask, in writing and before the year ends, is who now holds the board seat or observer role, who your contact is for the next round, and whether the partner who led your deal is still at the firm. If that partner stayed in Europe and left Sequoia, the seat may pass to someone in California who has never met your team. Better to find that out now than on the morning of a board vote.
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