Sequoia launches accelerator in Europe

Sequoia, a large venture capital firm from the United States, is launching an accelerator programme for early stage European startups. These companies have trouble finding seed capital from European investors. As a result, they often turn to American funding.

The accelerator ‘Arc’ from Sequoia, the VC-firm behind Google, Airbnb, Whatsapp and Instagram, starts on May 23rd. Tech companies can apply until the end of next week, the 8th of April. There is also an American counterpart of the programme starting this summer.

15 startups for 8 weeks

Around 15 early startups will be selected for an 8 week programme, including mentoring from other founders. Two weeks of the training will be in Sequoia’s Londen and San Francisco office, the rest will take place via Zoom. Moreover, participants will receive 1 million euros in seed capital.

No follow-up investments

After the accelerator programme, Sequoia does not plan to continue investing in the startups. The venture capitalist instead wants a seat at the table of its star students.

Sequoia does not plan to continue investing in the startups.

Participants will be introduced to Sequoia’s seed investor network, though. For example, startups in the accelerator will visit Klarna and talk to its founders. Sequoia invested in this Swedish fintech in 2010.

More American VCs enter European market

Arc is not the first seed-stage funding programme of its kind. Other American venture capital firms are focusing more on funding early stage companies in the Europe region, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global.

European startups have trouble finding local investors.

This is in part because European startups have trouble finding local investors. To illustrate: in 2021, Dutch startups raised 5 billion euros in venture capital. More than half came from international investors, mostly from the United States.