Sequoia Capital slashes crypto fund by 65.8% to $200M

Sequoia Capital has reportedly slashed its crypto fund in an effort to downsize. The crypto fund has been reduced to $200 million, down 65.8% from the earlier $585 million, according to a report by Wall Street Journal. It has also cut down its ecosystem fund from $900 million to $450 million, said the report citing anonymous sources.

The report further stated that Sequoia Capital has changed its focus from larger companies to younger startups.

The Silicon Valley-based VC firm has also laid off seven employees citing restructuring as the reason, in an attempt to survive the current economic uncertainty.

Another report, by TechCrunch, quoted a Sequoia spokesperson, "We made these changes to sharpen our focus on seed-stage opportunities and to provide liquidity to our limited partners. The crypto fund will primarily focus on new company formation, with the opportunity to supplement these investments from our seed, venture, growth and expansion funds as the companies mature."

Sequoia launched the crypto fund in February last year to invest in the then booming cryptocurrency space. The venture capital firm had made a high-profile investment worth $214 million in FTX, a crypto firm that crashed in November 2022.

Earlier last month, the marquee venture fund split into three independent business units—US/Europe, China, and India and Southeast Asia. The India and Southeast Asia arm has been rebranded as Peak XV Partners.

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director at Peak XV Partners, had said, "This (the split) has led the leaders of each business to collectively decide to move to fully independent partnerships with distinct brands, in order to serve our founders and limited partners in the best manner."