What Sequoia’s New Fund Says About its Crypto Ambitions

Sequoia Capital’s announcement Thursday that it was raising between $500 million and $600 million for a new fund focused exclusively on cryptocurrency startups is notable for a few reasons. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm had already signaled its intent to go deep on crypto last year, allocating 20% of its new investments to the sector. The decision to dedicate an entire fund to crypto, which it had previously never done for any sector, is tantamount to shouting that commitment through a megaphone. 

The new fund also marks a shift from how Sequoia partners were thinking about their crypto investments last year. In October, partner Shaun Maguire had sounded ambivalent when asked about the prospect, telling my colleague Kate Clark that while such a fund wasn’t out of the question, “we don’t want the lessons of crypto to be siloed just in a crypto team.”