The Ledger
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Lixandru: Selecting the right early-stage founders matters more than valuation dynamics
“When we have discussions on early stage opportunities, so seed and series A, we leave price dynamics aside. We focus on the company, we focus on the founder, and we really think that at this stage, selecting the right opportunity and selecting the right Compan…”
Lixandru: Hopin was likely the fastest-growing company in the world in 2020
“I believe Hopin was probably the fastest growing company that year.”
Lixandru: Sequoia operates US and Europe as one unified capital pool
“We changed our name, actually. It's USC, so US Europe, as one team, one pool of capital”
Lixandru: Growth investors have less pricing flexibility than early-stage VCs
“With growth, I really think you need to stay sober. By definition, given the upside in venture versus growth, I think you have less room to play with pricing on the growth side.”
Lixandru: Hopin's seed round was among Europe's most expensive at the time
“With Hoppin at the seed, I think it was one of the most, quote unquote, expensive seeds in Europe at the time.”
Lixandru: Ignore a startup's thousand potential flaws to focus on key questions
“If you look at any company, there are a thousand questions you can ask that might have a negative answer, and there are a thousand different ways for any company to not be successful, but there are only a few questions that really matter, so I would say focus …”
Lixandru: Growth-stage investors have less flexibility on valuation than early-stage investors
“With growth, I really think you need to stay sober. By definition, given the upside in venture versus growth, I think you have less room to play with pricing on the growth side.”
Sequoia led two consecutive funding rounds in Pennylane within nine months
“I mean, a good example is recently we led two rounds in a French company called Penny Lane. We just announced a growth round that we had led the previous round nine months before.”
Lixandru: Over-analyzing market size was my biggest early VC mistake
“One of the biggest mistakes I made in my early days was focus too much on market size, let's say. And I used to go and do my little spreadsheet and do the math and try to calculate.”
Sequoia launches Arc, an eight-week seed catalyst program for US and Europe
“So arc is an eight week seed catalyst program for us founders and European founders. It's going to be two separate cohorts and we actually launch in Europe first.”
Sequoia Arc provides a $1 million equity investment to each participating startup
“It's a one million dollar investment in the form of equity.”
European startups must expand internationally from day one to scale generationally
“For example, in Europe, going international, you have to think that about that since day one, right? Because each individual market is just not big enough to build a generational company.”
Lixandru: Deliveroo achieved early viral growth with virtually zero marketing spend
“This was pretty much no marketing, all word of mouth, and you could really tell they had hit the nail on the head in terms of customer demand”