The death of the program that discovered Uber and Stripe
Sequoia Capital posted on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, a memo called "The Sequoia of Tomorrow," signed by its seven managing partners, announcing the end of programs that had been pillars of the company for over a decade. The Scouts program — created around 2009 and responsible for bringing names like Uber, Stripe, and Airbnb into its portfolio — was shuttered alongside Arc, the accelerator launched in 2022, and the London office, opened in 2020.
The message is clear: the firm that expanded the most in two decades has now chosen the opposite path. "We are coming out of a ~20 year expansionary phase during which we built multiple businesses in multiple geographies," Sequoia wrote. "An unintended side effect was hierarchy. Our objective function is not scale, but quality."
How Scouts worked
The Scouts program was an innovation from Sequoia's early internet days. Founders and operators from portfolio companies received small checks — up to US$ 100,000 per batch, as TechCrunch reported in 2019 — to invest in startups on the firm's behalf. Scouts shared profits with Sequoia, but the mechanism was simple: the firm did not need a dedicated partner to scan deal flow in niches or geographies its partners couldn't reach.
The results were memorable. Jason Calacanis pointed Sequoia to Uber through the program. Sam Altman brought Stripe. Brian Chesky, Arash Ferdowsi, and Drew Houston (Airbnb and Dropbox, respectively) were early scouts. In 2018, the firm closed a dedicated US$ 180 million fund for Scouts. More than 230 scout-backed companies had raised over US$ 6 billion in subsequent rounds, not counting Uber.
At the time, half the sector had copied the model. But the 15+ years since then also showed the program was never perfect: scouts who were also active founders could face conflicts of interest, and misaligned incentives (the scout didn't keep the returns) limited commitment from some participants.
The end of a model, not a need
Sequoia did not detail the specific reasons for the closure. But analysts point to three converging factors.
First, the opportunity cost. In a seed round market that is increasingly expensive and competitive — especially in the AI era, where seed rounds can now exceed US$ 50 million — a US$ 100,000 scout check buys much less access than it did in 2009. The symbolic value of the program diminishes when entering a fund requires commitments far larger.
Second, the shift in incentive economics. Senior operators who were scouts can now invest their own money as angels. When the money is yours, the returns are entirely yours — there is no need to share carry with the firm anymore. This reduces the attractiveness of the model for the most valuable profiles Scouts was looking for.
Third, Sequoia itself is now large enough that the best founders come to the firm, not the other way around. In 2026, Sequoia raised roughly US$ 10 billion in new funds. When the brand opens doors, founders knock. The dependence on scouts as a primary deal flow channel diminishes.
What it means for the ecosystem
For European founders, the message is particularly difficult. Sequoia did not say it would not fund European companies — but it reinforced that the center of gravity is, indeed, the Bay Area. Along with the closure of the London office (opened in 2020) and the departure of Europe's only partner, Luciana Lixandru (who declined the transfer to San Francisco and kept her board seats), Sequoia sent a clear signal: the era of decentralized global venture capital is over.
For rival firms that still run scout and angel networks — including Andreessen Horowitz, which maintains an angel investor ecosystem — Sequoia's closure is an opportunity. The door that closed in Menlo Park is a window open elsewhere.
Roxanne Varza, former Sequoia scout (2020-2025) and current director of Station F, expressed sadness on LinkedIn but noted in a conversation with TechCrunch that "the pull for early and niche deals is why scout programs will likely be revived, not extinct. Scouts was just one way to scale the format."
What to watch
Sequoia merged its early-stage and growth-stage teams into a single team, eliminated the Monday partner meeting, and flattened its partnership structure. All changes target the same thing: less complexity, more focus.
What remains is the question: does the end of Scouts mark the end of decentralized deal flow in venture capital, or is it merely the end of a version that has exhausted its potential? If the AI-era seed round era continues, and if AI democratizes access to promising startups, perhaps the ecosystem needs to reinvent a new way to find the next Uber before someone points it out.
Sources: TechCrunch, Dealroom, TechCrunch
✓ Independent sources cross-checked and verified before publishing
