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Our bi-annual open call for outlier early stage founders.
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For 50+ years, we've backed founders at the earliest stages—Apple pre-revenue, Nvidia with just the founding team, Wiz when there wasn’t a clear idea.
We find Sequoia founders in many ways, including Arc, our bi-annual open call for pre-seed and seed stage founders.
Applications for our Arc Spring ’25 cohort are closed. Sign up below to get notified when we open up new programs in the Americas and Europe.
Early advantage with Sequoia
The right start makes all the difference.
Increase your velocity
From accelerating your path to PMF, to guidance and connections necessary to build with speed.
Unlock our network
Harness the power of our community and brand to access talent, customers, and more.
Scale your ambition
We help you build for the next decade, not just the next quarter.
“Sequoia’s network was our unfair advantage. Their name opens doors—customers, founders, executives, and investors take your calls. It’s like having a universal key to Silicon Valley. Most importantly, they’re patient partners who helped us lay the right foundations before scaling.”
Anish Agarwal
Co-founder and CEO of Traversal
Building the AI SRE agent for the enterprise; Former researcher at Amazon and Microsoft with a PhD from MIT
“Sequoia doesn't just believe in you, they believe in a version of you and your company that's bigger than your initial pitch. They saw our potential to revolutionize how people interact with counsel in life's big moments, not just solving one niche problem. That kind of conviction has given us a more ambitious internal and external compass.”
Viraj Bindra
Co-founder and CEO of Finch
Helping consumer law firms serve more clients with teams of paralegals and AI agents; Former product leader at DoorDash
The Arc Intensive
Four days. Five decades of insights. Built for Sequoia's pre-seed and seed stage founders.
Designed to help founders identify blind spots in customer understanding, competitive positioning, team building, and growth strategies, then rapidly address them with Sequoia's proven frameworks.
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Ryan Daniels
Co-founder and CEO of
Crosby Legal
Former lawyer who has built a hybrid AI law firm to help growing businesses execute faster.
"Sequoia taught us the importance of building an exceptional team early on. It takes a lot of time and effort, but working with great talent compounds later. During Arc, we designed a culture and hiring strategy that catered to the most elite candidates. We over-invested early when others would have started building. It pays off every day."
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Ellen DaSilva
Co-founder and CEO of
Summer Health
Ex-Hims & Hers and Twitter. Now radically simplifying access to healthcare.
“What you learn in Arc is applicable from day 1 and is grounded in pragmatism. Sequoia partners and operators helped us navigate the product-market fit journey and provided frameworks that we continue to revisit as we scale. The Arc community is also unparalleled.”
Samuel Colvin
Founder and CEO of
Pydantic
Creator of the Pydantic open source project, which is downloaded millions of times a day by thousands of developers all over the world.
“Participating in Arc was a transformative experience that perfectly aligned with our process of exploring what to build. We leveraged the weekly learnings to iterate faster, and we discovered how to be practical about finding product-market fit—removing the emotion and celebrating learning from failures to quickly move on.”
Alfred Wahlforss
Co-founder and CEO of
Listen Labs
Previously started an AI avatar app that gained 20k users on its first day. Now using AI to make market research simple and fast.
"I'm naturally competitive and always want to be the most successful founder in any group I join. The Arc cohort made this extremely challenging because the group you're comparing yourself against is so good. Being surrounded by founders of this caliber forced me to elevate my own game."
We distill 50+ years of company building expertise into 4 days of workshops, focused on building a foundation that endures.
FOUNDER & CULTURE STORY WORKSHOP
What drives you?
Uncover your personal motivations and the scale of your ambition. Understand how your values drive your company's culture and operative advantage.
CUSTOMER STORY WORKSHOP
Who are you building for?
Identify your customer, crisply articulate the problem to be solved and validate that it is a problem worth solving.
PRODUCT STORY WORKSHOP
What are you building?
Set a strong product mission and establish the right metric, strategy and tactics to build winning products with speed.
GTM STORY WORKSHOP
How are you different, not merely better?
Learn the fundamentals of brand, sales and marketing to better position your company in the market.
Business Story WORKSHOP
How will you create value?
Understand what it means to build a business, not just a product. Align all the strategic elements to drive your company forward.
JESS LEE
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Sebastian Siemiatkowski
Founder and CEO of KLARNA
Kevin Systrom
Founder of Instagram
Mike Krieger
Founder of Instagram
Lynn Jurich
Co-Founder and former CEO of Sunrun
ROELOF BOTHA
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Miki Kuusi
CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International
Ivan Zhao
Founder and CEO of NOTION
SUMAIYA BALBALE
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Ilkka Paananen
CEO of Supercell
NOLAN BUSHNELL
Founder and CEO of ATARI
Derek Muller
Creator of Youtube Channel, Veritasium
JESS LEE
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Sebastian Siemiatkowski
Founder and CEO of KLARNA
Kevin Systrom
Founder of Instagram
Mike Krieger
Founder of Instagram
Lynn Jurich
Co-Founder and former CEO of Sunrun
ROELOF BOTHA
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Miki Kuusi
CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International
Ivan Zhao
Founder and CEO of NOTION
SUMAIYA BALBALE
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Ilkka Paananen
CEO of Supercell
NOLAN BUSHNELL
Founder and CEO of ATARI
Derek Muller
Creator of Youtube Channel, Veritasium
A sampling of past and current teachers and speakers
JESS LEE
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Eric Glyman
CO-Founder AND CEO of RAMP
Sebastian Siemiatkowski
Founder and CEO of KLARNA
Mike Krieger
CPO at Anthropic
IVAN ZHAO
Founder and CEO of NOTION
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ROELOF BOTHA
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
Kareem Amin
CO-FOUNDER and CEO of CLAY
Alfred LIN
PARTNER AT SEQUOIA
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SUMAIYA BALBALE
COO, Partner AT SEQUOIA
Gaurav Misra
Co-Founder and CEO of CAPTIONS
Miki Kuusi
CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International
BRIAN HALLIGAN
Co-founder of hubspot
FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS
We find Sequoia founders in many ways, including cold outreach, chance encounters, data science signals, and more. Arc is our bi-annual open call for pre-seed and seed stage founders. It serves as another pathway for ambitious founders to connect with Sequoia.
What can I expect at the seed stage with Sequoia?
When you partner with Sequoia early, you increase your odds of success. We help you gain clarity to move in the right direction with speed and help you build for generational impact.
Sequoia partners with a small number of exceptional companies each year, meaning you get the full support of our team. Our network becomes your network, connecting you to essential talent, customers, and strategic partners that unlock growth.
All early-stage companies we partner with are invited to participate in the Arc Intensive, our company building program for Sequoia pre-seed and seed stage founders.
Tell me more about the Arc Intensive
The Arc Intensive is designed to help Sequoia’s early-stage founders build businesses that endure. Over 4 days, founders identify blind spots in customer understanding, competitive positioning, team building, and growth strategies, then rapidly address them with Sequoia's proven frameworks.
The Arc Intensive cohorts are small with ~10 companies. This allows us to dedicate 1:1 time with the Sequoia team and for founders to build deep relationships that last beyond the program.
The Fall ‘25 program will take place in-person in the Bay Area from Thursday, October 23rd through Sunday, October 26th.
Does Sequoia have dedicated terms for early-stage companies?
No. Every new pre-seed or seed stage partnership with Sequoia is unique. As such any terms are company specific.
What other benefits do early-stage Sequoia founders get?
From the Arc Intensive to 1:1s with our partners and operators, you’ll have the full support of Team Sequoia. You’ll also get access to Ampersand, our digital hub for founders with self-serve company building resources, content and Sequoia’s network rolodex, including our Builder community.
Additionally, as a Sequoia founder, you are eligible for 200+ exclusive benefits, including:
NVIDIA - up to $500k in savings
Microsoft Azure - up to $350k in credits
Cloudflare - up to $250k in credits
Datadog - up to $100k in credits
PostHog - up to $75k in savings
Anthropic - $30k in credits
Vercel - $30k in credits
Replicate - $25k in credits
GitHub - up to $25k in savings
Modal - $25k in credits
Fireworks AI - $10k in credits
Linear - up to $9k in savings
Render - $5k in credits
Pilot - $3k in savings…And 200+ more including AWS, OpenAI, Google Cloud, ElevenLabs, and more.
We met Google through an angel investor; ServiceNow from cold outreach; and Linear via a tweet.
Our story with you can start through Arc.
