Sequoia Capital is closing its London office, with several people due to leave the venture capital firm as a result, in a restructuring that will bring more of its operations back to its San Francisco Bay Area base.
The US investor said the decision did not reflect the quality of its London team. It said it no longer saw the need for a local presence and believed it could continue supporting European founders from the Bay Area.
The announcement does not mean Sequoia has said it will stop investing in Europe. Nor did the firm specify when the office would close, how many people would leave or the terms of their departures. Its statement described the number affected only as “several”.
The London office opened in 2020, when Sequoia brought in Luciana Lixandru as its first European partner. The move gave the California-based investor a physical base in a market where it had already backed technology businesses.
Lixandru said she had been offered the opportunity to move to San Francisco but had chosen to remain in Europe. She said she would remain a Sequoia partner, continue serving on the boards of her portfolio companies and invest personally in European founders. She did not set out further details of her next steps.
A wider change in approach
The London decision is one element of an overhaul announced by the firm on 4 November. Sequoia said it had ended its Arc accelerator and Scouts programmes and streamlined its operating and investment teams.
Arc was designed for very early-stage founders, offering company-building guidance and access to the firm’s network. The Scouts programme involved founders and other technology operators investing in young businesses on Sequoia’s behalf. Both gave the firm routes to companies at an early stage, although their closure does not in itself establish how future early-stage investments will be sourced.
Sequoia said it was removing the division between its early-stage and growth investment teams, combining them into a single team. It said the change was intended to make the relationship with founders more seamless as their companies developed.
The firm also said it had made changes to flatten its partnership structure after roughly two decades of expansion into different businesses and places. It described hierarchy as an unintended consequence of that growth. Its regular Monday partner meeting cycle is ending as well.
Sequoia said it had raised approximately $10 billion in new funds. It did not provide a timeframe for the fundraising in the announcement, or say how much would be directed towards European companies. The figure should not be treated as a fund reserved for London or the wider European market.
London’s funding landscape
The decision concerns a physical office and the people working there, rather than a stated withdrawal of all investment. For founders who are seeking capital, the firm’s own account points to a different way of working with European businesses, with support coming from its US base.
Government-commissioned evidence published in July estimated that UK start-ups raised $23.7 billion in venture capital in 2025, up from $17.9 billion in 2024. London companies accounted for about 75 per cent of the UK total in 2025.
The same analysis estimated that 74 per cent of UK venture funding by deal value came from overseas investors that year. The estimate excludes undisclosed investors and assumes that deal value is divided equally among co-investors, because individual contributions are not generally disclosed.
Those figures describe the wider market, not the effect of Sequoia’s office decision. The firm has not disclosed a target for its future European investment, and the available information does not establish whether the change will alter the amount of capital available to London start-ups.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
