Why Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire is Betting on a Year-Old AI Video Startup

Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire has risen to prominence over the past year for his friendship with Elon Musk, which has helped the firm get in on highly-coveted rounds in SpaceX and X. Through X, Sequoia also stands to get a stake in xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence lab. 

Maguire’s latest bet is on Decart, a startup that one day hopes to compete with xAI, as well as other firms developing large AI models, such as OpenAI—in which Sequoia also owns shares.

Maguire recently led a $21 million seed round in Decart, founded just over a year ago by Israeli duo Dean Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev. Oren Zeev, who provided the startup’s first pre-seed funding in September 2023 and has invested in numerous other Israeli firms, also participated. 

Decart has operated in stealth since its founding but is now preparing to release its own video-generating AI model that it says can perform more than 10 times more efficiently than competitors such as OpenAI’s Sora, which hasn’t been publicly released.