Sequoia Capital participated in 272 AI rounds worth $318.4 billion between January 2023 and August 2026, the highest round value of any venture capital firm in the Bot Memo repository. Five of those rounds, two in OpenAI, two in Anthropic and one in Waymo, account for $273 billion, or 86% of the total. The other 267 rounds add up to $45.4 billion.
Take out rounds of $10 billion or more and Sequoia drops to third, behind Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed. The rest of its AI book is built differently. Of the 98 AI companies Sequoia first backed since 2023, 68 came in at seed or Series A, and Sequoia led or co-led the first round in 81. Nineteen of its seed and Series A companies from that period are now valued at $1 billion or more. At the same time, Series C or later rounds rose to 40% of Sequoia’s AI rounds in 2026, against 12% across all AI rounds.
On this page
- Sequoia Capital AI Portfolio Overview
- Sequoia Capital AI Investments by Year, 2023 to 2026
- Sequoia's Largest AI Rounds in OpenAI, Anthropic and Waymo
- Sequoia AI Ranking Without Rounds of $10B or More
- Sequoia Seed and Series A Companies Now Worth $1B or More
- Sequoia AI Investments by Stage
- Sequoia's 2023 AI Portfolio Outcomes
- Sequoia AI Agent Investments, 2023 to 2026
- Sequoia AI Investments by Sector, Theme and City
- Sequoia AI Portfolio by Segment and Top Co-Investors
- Key Takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Methodology
Sequoia Capital AI Portfolio Overview
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| AI rounds Sequoia joined, Jan 2023 to Aug 2026 | 272 (247 main fund, 25 scout) |
| Value of AI rounds joined | $318.4B |
| Rounds joined, Jan 2023 to Feb 2025 | 114 rounds worth $22.1B |
| Five largest rounds (OpenAI x2, Anthropic x2, Waymo) | $273B, 86% of the total |
| Value of the other 267 rounds | $45.4B |
| Rank among venture firms on AI round value | 1st; 3rd without rounds of $10B or more |
| AI portfolio companies in the main-fund book | 151, of which 98 new since 2023 |
| Main-fund rounds by year | 31 (2023), 60 (2024), 89 (2025), 67 (2026 to Aug) |
| Series C or later share of rounds, 2026 | 40% for Sequoia, 12% for all AI rounds |
| San Francisco and New York City share of rounds | 55% for Sequoia, 21% for all AI rounds |
- Sequoia participated in AI rounds worth $318.4 billion across 272 rounds from January 2023 to August 2026.
- Five rounds between March 2025 and May 2026 (OpenAI at $122 billion and $40 billion, Anthropic at $65 billion and $30 billion, and Waymo at $16 billion) make up $273 billion of that value.
- Without rounds of $10 billion or more, Sequoia ranks third on AI round value at $45.4 billion, behind Andreessen Horowitz at $75.3 billion and Lightspeed at $48.1 billion.
- Nineteen AI companies Sequoia backed at seed or Series A from 2023 to 2025 are valued at $1 billion or more as of September 2026, and Sequoia led or co-led the first round in 18 of them.
- Sequoia’s main-fund AI rounds rose from 18 in the first half of 2023 to 56 in the first half of 2026, and follow-on rounds went from 8 to 36 over the same period.
- AI agent companies took 55% of Sequoia’s AI rounds in January to August 2026 (37 of 67), against 37% of all AI rounds.
- Developer tools and AI infrastructure account for 30.4% of Sequoia’s 247 main-fund AI rounds from 2023 to August 2026, against 12.3% of all AI rounds.
Sequoia Capital AI Investments by Year, 2023 to 2026
For two years Sequoia’s AI book grew at a steady pace with no round of $10 billion or more. From January 2023 to February 2025 it joined 114 AI rounds worth a combined $22.1 billion. The largest of those were in the single-digit billions, including two xAI rounds of $6 billion each in 2024.
That changed with OpenAI’s $40 billion Series F, announced in March 2025, which Sequoia joined through its August 2025 tranche. Then, between February and May 2026, Sequoia joined four rounds that together added $233 billion: Waymo’s $16 billion strategic round and Anthropic’s $30 billion Series G in February, OpenAI’s $122 billion strategic round in March, and Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H in May. By August 2026 the running total stood at $318.4 billion across 272 rounds.
| Round | Type | Date | Round size |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | Series F | March 2025 | $40B |
| Waymo | Strategic round | February 2026 | $16B |
| Anthropic | Series G | February 2026 | $30B |
| OpenAI | Strategic round | March 2026 | $122B |
| Anthropic | Series H | May 2026 | $65B |
The timing matters because of an argument Sequoia made itself. In June 2024, Sequoia partner David Cahn estimated a $600 billion gap between what the industry was spending on chips and data centers and what AI was earning back. Fourteen months later, Sequoia came into OpenAI’s $40 billion round through its August 2025 tranche. Cahn has since updated the $600 billion figure to $1.5 trillion and changed his reading of the opportunity:
“With the rise of AI coding, there is a more clear path to monetizing data center CapEx than there was when I first started publishing these analyses. When you see a company go $0 to $60B in ARR, we should all stand in awe of that performance.”
In August 2026, Sequoia also committed $10 billion to AI and reindustrialization.
Sequoia’s Largest AI Rounds in OpenAI, Anthropic and Waymo
TechCrunch, relaying a Financial Times report, described Sequoia’s Anthropic move as a break with the venture taboo on backing rivals:
“Yet here’s Sequoia, already invested in both OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, now throwing its weight behind Anthropic, too.” (Connie Loizos, editor-in-chief, TechCrunch, January 2026)
Sequoia has backed OpenAI since 2021 and joined both of xAI’s rounds in 2024. Its first Anthropic round came only at the Series G in February 2026. Those five lab and autonomy rounds, spread over 15 months, make up 86% of the value of every AI round Sequoia joined since 2023.
| Company | Round size | Date | Valuation at the round |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | $122B | March 2026 | $852B |
| Anthropic | $65B | May 2026 | $965B |
| OpenAI | $40B | March 2025 | $300B |
| Anthropic | $30B | February 2026 | $380B |
| Waymo | $16B | February 2026 | $126B |
| Other 267 rounds | $45.4B combined | Jan 2023 to Aug 2026 |
Below those five, the largest rounds Sequoia joined were xAI at $6 billion twice, Reflection AI at $2 billion, Skild AI at $1.4 billion, Ineffable Intelligence at $1.1 billion, and Xaira Therapeutics, Wiz and Safe Superintelligence at $1 billion each. For a co-investor, a Sequoia name on a lab round now reads as a position across several frontier labs at once, bought at 2025 and 2026 valuations.
Sequoia AI Ranking Without Rounds of $10B or More
On the total value of AI rounds joined from January 2023 to August 2026, Sequoia ranks first among venture firms at $318.4 billion, ahead of Andreessen Horowitz at $263.3 billion and Insight Partners at $259.9 billion. Rounds of $10 billion or more make up $273 billion of Sequoia’s total. Remove them, and Andreessen Horowitz moves to first at $75.3 billion, Lightspeed to second at $48.1 billion, and Sequoia to third at $45.4 billion.
| Firm | All AI rounds joined | Without $10B+ rounds | Rank without $10B+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequoia | $318.4B | $45.4B | 3 |
| Andreessen Horowitz | $263.3B | $75.3B | 1 |
| Insight Partners | $259.9B | $19.9B | 6 |
| Thrive Capital | $206.8B | $34.8B | 5 |
| Lightspeed | $156.1B | $48.1B | 2 |
| General Catalyst | $146.1B | $38.1B | 4 |
| ICONIQ | $132.1B | $14.1B | 9 |
| DST Global | $118.7B | $15.7B | 8 |
| Greenoaks | $108.6B | $13.6B | 10 |
| Founders Fund | $88.6B | $18.6B | 7 |
The headline ranking shows that Sequoia got into the lab rounds. It says little about how Sequoia picks companies. For a founder, the more useful number is how often Sequoia brings the term sheet. Sequoia’s main-fund AI book holds 151 companies. Forty-nine were backed before 2023 and four have no settled start year. The other 98 are new since 2023, and Sequoia led or co-led the first round in 81 of them.
| Entry point | Companies |
|---|---|
| Backed before 2023 | 49 |
| New since 2023, pre-seed or seed | 47 |
| New since 2023, Series A | 21 |
| New since 2023, Series B | 13 |
| New since 2023, Series C or later | 14 |
| New since 2023, stage not stated | 3 |
| Start year not settled | 4 |
Two examples show the pattern. Sequoia led Harvey’s Series A in April 2023, and it led OpenEvidence’s Series A in February 2025 at a $1 billion valuation.
Sequoia Seed and Series A Companies Now Worth $1B or More
By early 2025, critics were dismissing companies like Harvey as “GPT wrappers,” thin layers on someone else’s model. Pat Grady answered in Fortune:
“We have been delighted to let that narrative persist. We’ve been loading up on application companies.” (Pat Grady, partner, Sequoia Capital, Fortune, February 2025)
The track record supports him. Nineteen companies Sequoia backed at seed or Series A since 2023 are now valued at $1 billion or more, and Sequoia led or co-led the first round in all but one. Five companies came from 2023, nine from 2024 and five from 2025. The largest are Reflection AI at a reported $25 billion pre-money, Sierra at $15.8 billion, Harvey at $15.5 billion, OpenEvidence at a reported $15 billion and Skild AI at $14 billion.
| Company | Latest valuation | Sequoia’s first round |
|---|---|---|
| Reflection AI | $25B (reported, pre-money) | Co-led seed, 2024 |
| Sierra | $15.8B | Co-led launch round, February 2024 |
| Harvey | $15.5B | Led Series A, April 2023 |
| OpenEvidence | $15B (reported) | Led Series A, February 2025 |
| Skild AI | $14B | Co-led seed, 2023 |
| Physical Intelligence | $5.6B (reported) | Joined seed, March 2024 |
| Factory | $5B | Co-led seed, November 2023 |
| Decart | $4B (reported) | Led seed, October 2024 |
| Eon | $4B | Led seed, 2024 |
| Ricursive Intelligence | $4B | Led seed, December 2025 |
| Mach Industries | $3.7B | Led seed, June 2023 |
| Stark | $3.65B (reported) | Led Series A, October 2024 |
| Neros | $2.5B | Led seed, May 2024 |
| Harmonic | $1.45B | Led Series A, September 2024 |
| LangChain | $1.25B | Led Series A, April 2023 |
| Enter | $1.2B | Led seed, March 2025 |
| Kela Technologies | $1.2B (reported) | Led seed, March 2025 |
| Rillet | $1B | Led Series A, May 2025 |
| XBOW | $1B+ | Led seed, July 2024 |
Five of the 19 build AI agents or agent tools: Harvey, Sierra, Factory, LangChain and XBOW. Reflection AI and Skild AI build models, so Sequoia was early to a newer group of labs well before its 2026 lab rounds.
Defense is the other cluster. Mach Industries, Stark, Neros and Kela are all on the list, and in June 2023 Reuters called the Mach round Sequoia’s first defense tech investment. After that first bet Sequoia moved quickly, and GovTech and defense now take 6.5% of its AI rounds against 4.0% of the market’s.
Sequoia AI Investments by Stage
Sequoia prefers early-stage entry into AI companies, yet most of the rise in its pace came from follow-on rounds. Main-fund AI rounds went from 18 in the first half of 2023 to 56 in the first half of 2026. Follow-on rounds, meaning later rounds in a company Sequoia already held, rose from 8 to 36. New entries rose from 10 to 18. Of the 38 rounds added between those two half-years, 28 were follow-ons and 8 were new entries.
| Half-year | Total rounds | Follow-on | New entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| H1 2023 | 18 | 8 | 10 |
| H2 2023 | 13 | 9 | 4 |
| H1 2024 | 36 | 23 | 12 |
| H2 2024 | 24 | 16 | 8 |
| H1 2025 | 43 | 22 | 21 |
| H2 2025 | 46 | 32 | 13 |
| H1 2026 | 56 | 36 | 18 |
| H2 2026 (Jul to Aug) | 11 | 5 | 5 |
Totals in some half-years include a small number of rounds where Sequoia’s first round is not confirmed. Harvey has seven rounds in the book and Cyera has five. Repeat that across the portfolio and, by 2026, Series C or later growth-stage rounds outnumbered seed rounds more than three to one. The typical round Sequoia joins is more than six times the size of the typical AI round.
| Year | Series C or later, Sequoia | Series C or later, all AI rounds | Pre-seed and seed, Sequoia | Pre-seed and seed, all AI rounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 13% | 17% | 26% | 37% |
| 2024 | 38% | 21% | 17% | 39% |
| 2026 (Jan to Aug) | 40% | 12% | 12% | 40% |
The table lists the years labelled on the chart; 2025 appears on the chart itself.
Fund structure is one likely reason. The lean toward later rounds started in 2024, well before the 2026 lab rounds. In October 2021, Sequoia’s US and Europe business dropped the fixed 10-year fund cycle, and Roelof Botha, then a Sequoia partner, explained why:
“The best founders want to make a lasting impact in the world. Their ambition isn’t confined to a 10-year period. Neither is ours.” (Roelof Botha, then a partner at Sequoia Capital, “The Sequoia Capital Fund: Patient Capital for Building Enduring Companies”, October 2021)
A Sequoia seed check usually comes with an investor that wants to keep buying in later rounds.
Sequoia’s 2023 AI Portfolio Outcomes
In April 2023, Pat Grady and Charlie Curnin explained the Harvey bet:
“Harvey is the first and best instantiation of a new breed of company: the AI super app. Harvey is in the business of giving people superpowers. First, lawyers. Next, professional services. Eventually, all of knowledge work.” (Pat Grady and Charlie Curnin, Sequoia Capital, “Partnering with Harvey: Putting LLMs to Work”, April 2023)
That bet held up. Sequoia backed 30 AI companies in 2023. On announced valuations, Harvey grew from $715 million at its 2023 round to $15.5 billion in September 2026, a 21.7x change. Island grew from $1.5 billion to $6.4 billion, or 4.3x. Cyera, reported at $500 million in 2023, was valued at $12 billion in June 2026, and Temporal went from a reported $1.5 billion to $12.55 billion.
| Company | 2023 round valuation | Latest | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvey | $715M | $15.5B (Sep 2026) | 21.7x |
| Island | $1.5B | $6.4B (Sep 2026) | 4.3x |
| Cyera | $500M (reported) | $12B (Jun 2026) | Press-reported |
| Temporal | $1.5B (reported) | $12.55B (Sep 2026) | Press-reported |
| LangChain | $200M (reported) | $1.25B (Oct 2025) | Press-reported |
| Linear | $400M (reported) | $1.25B (Jun 2025) | Press-reported |
| Captions | $250M (reported) | $500M (reported, Jul 2024) | Press-reported |
| Replicate | $350M (reported) | $57M (sale, Dec 2025) | Down |
The same year produced the misses, including two exits by acquisition. Cloudflare bought Replicate for $57 million in total cash consideration, in a deal that closed in December 2025, after press reports had valued Replicate at $350 million in 2023. CloseFactor and Cybersyn shut down. OpenAI bought Rockset for a price it never made public, so that one is harder to call a miss.
Sequoia AI Agent Investments, 2023 to 2026
In January 2026, Pat Grady and Sonya Huang put the shift to agents in writing:
“The AI applications of 2023 and 2024 were talkers. Some were very sophisticated conversationalists! But their impact was limited. The AI applications of 2026 and 2027 will be doers.” (Pat Grady and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital, “2026: This is AGI”, January 2026)
Sequoia’s rounds had moved a year earlier. AI agent companies took 26% of Sequoia’s AI rounds in 2023 (8 of 31), 28% in 2024 (17 of 60), 43% in 2025 (38 of 89) and 55% in January to August 2026 (37 of 67). Across all AI rounds the share went from 15% to 18%, 28% and 37%.
| Year | Sequoia agent rounds | Sequoia share | All AI rounds share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 8 of 31 | 26% | 15% |
| 2024 | 17 of 60 | 28% | 18% |
| 2025 | 38 of 89 | 43% | 28% |
| 2026 (Jan to Aug) | 37 of 67 | 55% | 37% |
In 2025, the share of Sequoia’s rounds going to AI agent companies (43%) was already higher than the whole market’s share in 2026 (37%). The essay described an investment thesis Sequoia had already built into its book. Sierra, Factory and XBOW were all backed before it was written.
Sequoia AI Investments by Sector, Theme and City
Developer tools and AI infrastructure is the largest segment in Sequoia’s book at 30.4% of its 247 main-fund AI rounds, against 12.3% of all AI rounds, a multiple of 2.5x. Legal tech runs at 3.1x the market (6.5% against 2.1%), cybersecurity at 1.9x (13.8% against 7.1%) and GovTech and defense at 1.6x (6.5% against 4.0%).
| Segment | Sequoia | All AI rounds | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal tech | 6.5% | 2.1% | 3.1x |
| Developer tools and AI infrastructure | 30.4% | 12.3% | 2.5x |
| Cybersecurity | 13.8% | 7.1% | 1.9x |
| GovTech and defense | 6.5% | 4.0% | 1.6x |
| FinTech | 10.5% | 13.9% | 0.8x |
| Health and biotech | 9.7% | 17.9% | 0.5x |
| Transportation and mobility | 1.6% | 4.7% | 0.3x |
| Energy and sustainability | 1.6% | 7.3% | 0.2x |
| Real estate and construction | 0.4% | 4.2% | 0.1x |
| Retail and ecommerce | 0.4% | 4.3% | 0.1x |
A Sequoia partner explained the security side of the book in 2025:
“Security and observability are two huge, interesting domains in need of solutions. LLMs can’t effectively solve problems in these domains off the shelf, because there are no public sources of security data or observability data to train them.” (Bogomil Balkansky, partner, Sequoia Capital, “Building Tomorrow’s Transformational Companies”, October 2025)
Cyera, which finds and protects sensitive company data, fits that reasoning and is one of Sequoia’s most repeated bets. Health and biotech and energy run well below the market, with OpenEvidence as the large exception. Sequoia has no AI rounds at all in education or in food and farming.
At the theme level, Sequoia leans hardest into reasoning models, at 5.6x the market’s share of rounds, and open source, at 5.1x. Contract analysis follows at 4.9x, legal workflow at 3.9x, code generation at 3.8x and CI/CD at 3.3x. Only 3 of the 28 themes with 10 or more Sequoia rounds sit below the market’s share: industrial automation (0.96x), clinical decision support (0.77x) and risk assessment (0.72x).
Bot Memo also classifies startups by how they use AI. Sequoia leans hardest into AI platforms, which build their own foundation models. AI native companies, where AI is the product, are 56% of its rounds, close to the market’s 58%. In 2025 and 2026, AI platforms took 12% of Sequoia’s 154 rounds against 2% of all AI rounds. AI augmented companies, which add AI to an existing product, took 20% of Sequoia’s rounds against 29% of the market’s.
Sequoia’s geography is narrow. San Francisco (84 rounds, 34.0%) and New York City (53 rounds, 21.5%) hold 55% of its AI rounds, against 21% of the market’s. US companies take 86% of Sequoia’s rounds, against 55% of all AI rounds. Tel Aviv is the top city outside the US with 10 rounds, and Israel leads the 35 rounds Sequoia joined outside the US, followed by Germany with 8 and France with 5. London founders rarely see Sequoia on a round: London is 1.6% of Sequoia’s rounds against 6.4% of the market’s.
| City | Sequoia rounds | Sequoia share | All AI rounds share |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 84 | 34.0% | 10.7% |
| New York City | 53 | 21.5% | 9.8% |
| Palo Alto | 15 | 6.1% | 1.4% |
| Tel Aviv | 10 | 4.0% | 1.9% |
| San Jose | 5 | 2.0% | 0.8% |
| Paris | 5 | 2.0% | 1.6% |
| Berlin | 5 | 2.0% | 1.5% |
| Boston | 4 | 1.6% | 2.3% |
| London | 4 | 1.6% | 6.4% |
Sequoia AI Portfolio by Segment and Top Co-Investors
The logo map below puts the seven largest segments of Sequoia’s main-fund AI book on one page, with the companies Sequoia backed most often in each. Developer tools and AI infrastructure hold 68 of the 247 rounds across 43 companies. Cybersecurity follows with 34 rounds in 19 companies, FinTech with 26 in 16, health and biotech with 24 in 18, manufacturing and industrials and marketing and sales tech with 17 each, and legal tech with 16 rounds in 5 companies.
| Segment | Rounds | Companies | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer tools and AI infrastructure | 68 | 43 | Factory, Temporal, Harmonic, OpenAI |
| Cybersecurity | 34 | 19 | Cyera, Chainguard, Island, XBOW |
| FinTech | 26 | 16 | Turnkey, Rillet, Ramp, Mercury |
| Health and biotech | 24 | 18 | OpenEvidence, Anterior, Iambic |
| Manufacturing and industrials | 17 | 11 | Skild AI, Etched, RobCo |
| Marketing and sales tech | 17 | 12 | Sierra, Clay, Listen |
| Legal tech | 16 | 5 | Harvey, Enter, Crosby |
The map is lopsided inside its own segments. Harvey alone accounts for seven of legal tech’s 16 rounds, and OpenAI’s two rounds dwarf everything else in developer tools. Cyera appears with rounds in every year from 2023 to 2026, including $540 million in 2025 and $400 million in 2026.
The co-investor list follows the ranking. The two firms that pass Sequoia once the giant rounds are set aside, Lightspeed and Andreessen Horowitz, are also the two it shares the most AI rounds with. Lightspeed sat on 38 of Sequoia’s 247 main-fund rounds, and Andreessen Horowitz on 31. Kleiner Perkins is the co-investor rising fastest, with 22 shared rounds in 2025 and 2026 against 7 in 2023 and 2024, a 3.1x increase. Index Ventures went from 5 shared rounds to 15. Sequoia’s own main-fund rounds rose from 91 to 156 over the same two periods, or 1.7x.
| Co-investor | Shared rounds 2023-24 | Shared rounds 2025-26 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lightspeed | 14 | 24 | 38 |
| Andreessen Horowitz | 11 | 20 | 31 |
| Kleiner Perkins | 7 | 22 | 29 |
| Coatue | 9 | 18 | 27 |
| Index Ventures | 5 | 15 | 20 |
| Redpoint Ventures | 6 | 14 | 20 |
| General Catalyst | 6 | 12 | 18 |
| Khosla Ventures | 5 | 12 | 17 |
| Y Combinator | 7 | 9 | 16 |
| Cyberstarts | 9 | 6 | 15 |
| Lux Capital | 7 | 8 | 15 |
| Thrive Capital | 4 | 11 | 15 |
Sequoia participated in the latest rounds that valued Anthropic at $965 billion and OpenAI at $852 billion. For that money to double, the two labs would have to be worth $1.9 trillion and $1.7 trillion respectively. Whether they get there is Cahn’s $1.5 trillion question, now with Sequoia’s own capital on the line.
Key Takeaways
- Sequoia participated in 272 AI rounds worth $318.4 billion from January 2023 to August 2026, the highest round value of any venture firm in the Bot Memo repository.
- Five rounds in OpenAI, Anthropic and Waymo account for $273 billion, or 86%, of that value; the other 267 rounds total $45.4 billion, which ranks Sequoia third behind Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed.
- Sequoia led or co-led the first round in 81 of the 98 AI companies it first backed since 2023, and 19 of its seed and Series A companies are now valued at $1 billion or more.
- Series C or later rounds rose from 13% of Sequoia’s AI rounds in 2023 to 40% in 2026, while the market’s share fell to 12%.
- AI agent companies took 55% of Sequoia’s 2026 AI rounds against 37% of the market’s, and developer tools and AI infrastructure took 30.4% of its rounds against 12.3%.
- San Francisco and New York City hold 55% of Sequoia’s AI rounds against 21% of all AI rounds, while London holds 1.6% against 6.4%.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much AI funding has Sequoia Capital participated in?
Sequoia Capital participated in 272 artificial intelligence rounds worth $318.4 billion between January 2023 and August 2026. That figure is the full size of each round Sequoia joined, not Sequoia’s own checks. Five rounds in OpenAI, Anthropic and Waymo make up $273 billion of it.
What are Sequoia Capital’s largest AI investments?
The largest AI rounds Sequoia joined since 2023 are OpenAI’s $122 billion strategic round in March 2026, Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H in May 2026, OpenAI’s $40 billion Series F in March 2025, Anthropic’s $30 billion Series G in February 2026 and Waymo’s $16 billion strategic round in February 2026. Below those sit two xAI rounds of $6 billion each and Reflection AI at $2 billion.
Does Sequoia Capital invest in both OpenAI and Anthropic?
Yes. Sequoia has backed OpenAI since 2021, joined both of xAI’s rounds in 2024, and joined its first Anthropic round at the $30 billion Series G in February 2026. It then joined Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H in May 2026.
What stage does Sequoia Capital invest in for AI startups?
Sequoia usually enters AI companies early: 68 of the 98 AI companies it first backed since 2023 came in at seed or Series A. Its book has grown later over time, and Series C or later rounds made up 40% of Sequoia’s AI rounds in 2026, against 12% of all AI rounds.
Which AI sectors does Sequoia Capital focus on?
Developer tools and AI infrastructure is Sequoia’s largest AI segment at 30.4% of its 247 main-fund rounds, against 12.3% of all AI rounds. Legal tech runs at 3.1x the market’s share, cybersecurity at 1.9x and GovTech and defense at 1.6x, while health and biotech sits at 0.5x.
Who co-invests most often with Sequoia Capital in AI?
Lightspeed shares the most AI rounds with Sequoia’s main fund, 38 of its 247 rounds from January 2023 to August 2026, followed by Andreessen Horowitz with 31 and Kleiner Perkins with 29. Kleiner Perkins is rising fastest, from 7 shared rounds in 2023 and 2024 to 22 in 2025 and 2026.
Methodology
- Window: January 2023 to August 2026. All amounts are in US dollars.
- Data: Verified AI venture rounds in the Bot Memo repository.
- Attribution: Every investor on a round is credited with the full round, so figures read as rounds Sequoia participated in and are never added across firms.
- Round sizes: As announced. Several of the largest include committed or previously announced capital, and OpenAI’s $40 billion round of 2025 was filled in tranches.
- Sequoia’s book: The book counts Sequoia’s 247 main-fund rounds. The 25 rounds from its scout program are set apart and count only toward the ranking totals.
- Valuations: Whole-company figures, announced at priced rounds or reported by the press where marked. They are not Sequoia’s returns.
- Segments: A company on the logo map sits in one segment, while the sector chart counts a round in every segment it belongs to. That is why the map shows 68 developer tools rounds and the sector chart 75.
About the author
Editorial Staff
The Editorial Staff at Bot Memo is a team of writers, analysts, and AI agents dedicated to mapping the global AI startup ecosystem. Led by Chintan Zalani, the team tracks thousands of funding rounds, classifies companies across verticals, and distills it all into actionable intelligence for investors and founders.
