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☆ Venture Capital Giant Sequoia Spins Off China and India Units
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firms, is breaking itself up, spinning out its Chinese unit into an independent company at a time of rising tensions between China and the United States over investment and access to advanced technologies. The firm announced on Tuesday that it planned to split into three independent partnerships, with its businesses in China and India adopting new brands and the firm in the United States and Europe retaining the Sequoia name. The firm’s global footprint had become “increasingly complex” to manage, said a statement from Sequoia’s managing partner Roelof Botha; the firm’s China head, Neil Shen; and its India head, Shailendra Singh. “Increasingly, we deal with portfolio conflicts across entities because founders really now have global ambitions,” Mr. Botha said. “And the brand confusion was just starting to chafe at everybody.”

Persons: Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, Shailendra Singh, Botha, ”, “, ” Mr Organizations: Sequoia Locations: China, United States, India, Europe

☆ US venture capital titan Sequoia to split off China business amid tension with Beijing
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Bryan Mena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Venture capital titan Sequoia is splitting its business into three independent partnerships, each with separate brands. Sequoia Capital executives briefed investors Tuesday about the plans, which are expected to be completed by March 2024. The firm’s operations in Europe and the United States will retain the current name, Sequoia Capital. Its Chinese unit, Sequoia China, will use its current Chinese name, HongShan. The company’s business operations in India and Southeast Asia will be spun off into a partnership named Peak XV Partners.

Persons: hyping, Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, Shailendra Singh, Biden, TikTok Organizations: DC CNN — Venture, Sequoia Capital, XV Partners, Apple, Sequoia, Republicans, US, Street Journal Locations: Washington, China, Beijing, Europe, United States, Sequoia China, India, Southeast Asia, Montana

☆ Sequoia Capital to split into three parts, separating its China and India businesses
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Rohan Goswami | In Rohangoswamicnbc | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Sequoia partners Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, and Shailendra Singh delivered the update to their limited partners via a joint message. Botha is managing partner for Sequoia's U.S. and Europe business, while Shen and Singh run Sequoia's China and Southeast Asia businesses, respectively. "To deliver on our mission, we have decided to fully embrace our local-first approach," the three partners told their investors. "We've seen growing market confusion due to the shared Sequoia brand as well as portfolio conflicts across entities." Sequoia is one of the world's top venture funds, with notable investments in Apple, Google, Paypal, and Zoom.

Persons: Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, Shailendra Singh, Botha, Shen, Singh Organizations: Sequoia, Sequoia's, XV Partners, Apple, Google, Paypal Locations: China, U.S, Europe, Southeast Asia, India

☆ The decision to split Sequoia Capital into 3 entities puts to bed any questions of a power struggle at the VC powerhouse
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

VC powerhouse Sequoia Capital announced Tuesday that it is splitting into three entities. One of those entities, Sequoia China, known locally as HongShan, will operate as a distinct firm. The mighty Sequoia Capital is dropping branches. The decision puts to bed any question of a power struggle at one of Silicon Valley's most respected firms. And unlike some other global firms that had veto power over investments overseas, according to Bloomberg, Sequoia China had full autonomy to strike its own deals.

Persons: Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, Forbes, Alex Konrad, Doug Leone, Instagram, Bytedance, Botha, Shen, Julian Bek, Elon Musk's Organizations: Sequoia Capital, Sequoia, XV Partners, YouTube, Bloomberg, Shen, Sequoia China, Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Accel, Elon, Twitter, Fidelity Locations: Sequoia China, China, Europe, HongShan, India, Southeast Asia, Sequoia, Sequoia Capital China, Asia, Silicon Valley, London, FTX

☆ Sequoia Capital to split into three firms, separating its China and India businesses
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailSequoia Capital to split into three firms, separating its China and India businessesCNBC's Deirdre Bosa joins 'The Exchange' to discuss Sequoia Capital splitting into three firms, the changing venture capital environment, and more.

Persons: Deirdre Bosa Organizations: Sequoia Locations: China, India

☆ Sequoia Capital to split into three independent entities
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Deirdre Bosa | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailSequoia Capital to split into three independent entitiesSequoia Capital is splitting its global business into three independent entities.CNBC's Deirdre Bosa has the details.

Persons: Deirdre Bosa Organizations: Sequoia

NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Sequoia is blazing another new trail in venture capital. As one of Silicon Valley’s pioneers, Sequoia Capital has backed everything from Apple (AAPL.O) to Zoom Video Communications (ZM.O) over the past half-century, and many others in between, including Instagram, 23andMe (ME.O) and DoorDash (DASH.N). The world has changed, however – and changed yet again – since Sequoia opened its doors. Valentine named Sequoia after a tree that lives thousands of years, signifying a plan to survive and grow through any sort of climate. Follow @thereallsl on TwitterFollow @anshumandaga on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSVenture capital firm Sequoia Capital said on June 6 that it would separate its China, India and Southeast Asia, and U.S. and European arms into three businesses.

Persons: Don Valentine, – Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, Shailendra Singh –, Valentine, Sequoia, ByteDance, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Sharon Lam Organizations: YORK, Reuters, Sequoia Capital, Apple, Video Communications, Investments, HK, Sequoia, Venture, Thomson Locations: China, India, U.S, Sequoia, Southeast Asia, United States, Mumbai, Shanghai

HONG KONG, June 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Shein is threading the world’s trickiest geopolitical needle. But rising American pressure is forcing it to tweak its business model right as it tries to list there. Last year, its top line surged 46% to $23 billion, per the Wall Street Journal, surpassing $22 billion at H&M and outpacing the 18% growth at Inditex. A Boston Consulting Group report notes that this model allows Shein to keep inventory turnover at just 40 days. That will be expensive; the company's net profit margin was a razor-thin 3.5% last year, according to the Wall Street Journal, far below bricks and mortar rival Inditex's 13%.

Persons: Shein, Bernstein, Chris Xu, Xu, Mubadala, Pete Sweeney, Katrina Hamlin Organizations: Reuters, U.S ., Rivals, Street, Financial Times, Boston Consulting, Morningstar, Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street, ’, Singapore, Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, Thomson Locations: HONG KONG, Zara, China, Inditex, Guangdong, U.S, Xinjiang, Nanjing, Singapore, Mexico, Brazil, India

May 30 (Reuters) - Jensen Huang, the chief of chipmaker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), has joined an elite list of tech executives to head a company worth $1 trillion. Nvidia shares have been on a tear, rising on stellar sales projections from a boom in artificial-intelligence workloads and components. Huang was born in Taiwan but moved to the United States as a child, earning engineering degrees at Oregon State University and Stanford University. In 1993 he founded Nvidia along with Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky, securing backing from Silicon Valley's Sequoia Capital and others. As companies further adopt AI, Nvidia could be one of the key beneficiaries.

Persons: Jensen Huang, Huang, Inc's, Jeff Bezos, ChatGPT, Curtis Priem, Chris Malachowsky, Andrew Ng, Yuvraj Malik, Samrhitha, Stephen Nellis, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Nvidia Corp, Nvidia, Oregon State University, Stanford University, Valley's Sequoia Capital, BET, INTEL, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Intel Corp, Logic Corp, Devices Inc, Alphabet Inc, Baidu Inc, HK, San, Thomson Locations: Taiwan, United States, Taipei, Bengaluru, San Francisco

Nvidia chips have been at the heart of major tech tends from video games to self-driving cars, to cloud computing, and now AI - artificial intelligence. Born in Taiwan, Huang moved to the United States as a child, earning engineering degrees at Oregon State University and Stanford University. Its first big hits were specialized chips to power high-intensity motion graphics for computer games called graphics processing units (GPUs). Even then, Huang did not think of Nvidia as just a chip company. "Computer graphics is one of the most complex parts of computer science," Huang told an audience in Silicon Valley in 2021 while receiving a lifetime achievement award.

Persons: Jensen Huang, I've, Huang, grunting, Inc's, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, ChatGPT, Stanford University . Huang, selfies, Curtis Priem, Chris Malachowsky, Andrew Ng, Yuvraj Malik, Samrhitha, Stephen Nellis, Ben Blanchard, Matthew Lewis, Sonali Paul, Jacqueline Wong Organizations: Nvidia Corp, Apple Inc, Oregon State University, Stanford University, Nvidia, Valley's Sequoia Capital, BET, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Intel, Thomson Locations: Taiwan, United States, Taipei, Silicon Valley, Bengaluru, San Francisco

May 29 (Reuters) - Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings (TEM.UL) said on Monday it had cut compensation for the team and senior management that recommended its investment in the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange. "Although there was no misconduct by the investment team in reaching their investment recommendation, the investment team and senior management, who are ultimately responsible for investment decisions made, took collective accountability and had their compensation reduced," Temasek Chairman Lim Boon Heng said in a statement posted on Temasek's website on Monday. The move comes around six months after Temasek initiated an internal review of its investment in FTX, which resulted in a writedown of $275 million. Temasek also said last year it had conducted "extensive due diligence" on FTX, with its audited financial statement then "showed it to be profitable". "With FTX, as alleged by prosecutors and as admitted by key executives at FTX and its affiliates, there was fraudulent conduct intentionally hidden from investors, including Temasek," Lim said in the statement on Monday.

☆ VC firm Sequoia is pulling out all the stops to dominate AI, insiders say. The firm is using everything from 'speed dating' to star studded summits to woo founders.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

It's just one move of many the VC firm has taken to cement its position in the white-hot AI space. Huang and Grady wrote a public blog post on Sequoia's website inviting AI founders to email them their ideas and pitches directly. But the firm has been louder where it counts, investing in splashy AI startups like Harvey and LangChain. Every member of the firm, from managing partner Roleof Botha on down, has made AI a top priority, with Grady, Huang, and Buhler most prominently involved. Both Huang and Buhler now spend over 90% of their time researching AI companies, versus 50% in previous years, they said.

☆ Premarket stocks: Wall Street's 'fear gauge' is rising as US debt talks drag on
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Markets will get volatile, maybe the stock market will go down, the Treasury markets will have their own problems,” he said. But this fear of market volatility isn’t going away. A similar fight around the debt ceiling in 2011 spurred a serious bout of market volatility. Wall Street’s key measure of volatility, the VIX, reached two year highs and soared more than 35% in just one day. Wall Street typically uses the VIX, known as the market’s “fear gauge,” as a way to measure how investors feel about financial and economic uncertainties.

☆ This Asian MMA promotion wants to crack the US market -- without the blood and trash-talking
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Andrew Mcnicol | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Could 2023 be the year mixed-martial arts (MMA) in the United States finally returns to its pure, humble beginnings nurtured in Asia nearly 5,000 years ago? “I can’t wait for the US fans to be exposed to true martial arts. Fighting on American soil, it’s amazing to be able to headline this landmark event,” said the former longtime UFC champion, who joined One in 2018. Courtesy Aaron Pan/ONE ChampionshipWhat “true martial arts” means in new-era combat sports is certainly up for interpretation. That’s more true to the spirit of martial arts and its traditional values.

☆ When Brian Chesky co-founded Airbnb, his mom said, 'You're not an entrepreneur, you're unemployed'—now he's worth $9.3 billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Megan Sauer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

That's according to Chesky, who told the story at a recent Stanford Graduate School of Business event. Months before Airbnb's scheduled initial public offering, business dropped 80% in eight weeks during Covid-19 lockdowns, Chesky told Stanford students. Today, Airbnb's market cap is $75.49 billion, and Chesky's net worth is $9.3 billion, according to Forbes. "I never focused on trying to make a lot of money," Chesky said. DON'T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life?

☆ Tech groupthink could hinder AI competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Everyone wants a piece of OpenAI, the startup behind artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT. Now that OpenAI has the support of venture capital’s biggest names, that norm will make life harder for smaller challengers - especially given the steep costs of training AI models and how stretched venture funding is now. Rivals could look to the other tech goliaths; competitor Anthropic, backed by Microsoft nemesis Google, recently completed a similarly sized fundraise. By planting its flag in Silicon Valley early, OpenAI may have won a lasting edge in the AI race. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ CEO of India's Byju assures company's compliance after raids over alleged forex law violations
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Byju Raveendran, founder and chief executive officer of Think and Learn Pvt., speaks during the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong on March 26, 2019. Indian education platform Byju's CEO is confident that the country's financial crime-fighting agency will find the company compliant after raids on its premises over suspected breaches of foreign exchange laws, according to an internal memo. Byju's is one of India's biggest startups, once valued at $22 billion. It has attracted global investors such as General Atlantic, BlackRock and Sequoia Capital, which have invested in the company over the years. Byju's did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

☆ Byju's CEO assures company's compliance after raids over alleged forex law violations
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Aditya Kalra | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

India's Enforcement Directorate raided three premises linked to the company on Saturday over alleged foreign exchange law violations. The searches revealed that Byju's parent firm Think & Learn Pvt Ltd had received foreign direct investment of nearly 280 billion rupees ($3.43 billion) between 2011 and 2023, the agency said on Saturday. The agency also said that the company remitted 97.5 billion rupees to various foreign jurisdictions between 2011 and 2023 in the name of overseas direct investments. In the internal memo, Raveendran said that the company had sent some money overseas to fund its international acquisitions. The company had taken all efforts to comply with foreign exchange laws and all cross-border transactions were routed through regular banking channels, he added.

☆ India probes education platform Byju's over alleged forex law violations
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

April 29 (Reuters) - India's financial crime-fighting agency said on Saturday it had raided three premises linked to education platform Byju's and its billionaire CEO Byju Raveendran over suspected breaches of the country's foreign exchange laws. The searches under alleged foreign exchange law violations revealed that Think and Learn Private Limited, Byju's parent firm, had received foreign direct investment of nearly 280 billion rupees ($3.43 billion) during the period from 2011 to 2023, ED said. Byju's legal spokesperson said the visit by ED officials to one of the company's offices in Bengaluru was related to a routine inquiry under foreign exchange laws. The company reported a loss of 45.64 billion rupees ($558.49 million) in May for fiscal 2021. Byju's spent $2.5 billion in fiscal year ended March 2022 to acquire companies such as Aakash, U.S.-based Epic, kids' coding platform Tynker, professional education firm Great Learning and exam perpetration platform Toppr.

☆ India probes education platform Byju's over forex laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 29 (Reuters) - India's financial crime-fighting agency said on Saturday it had raided three premises of billionaire Byju Raveendran, the founder and CEO of education platform Byju's, over suspected breaches of the country's foreign exchange laws. Blackrock last month cut Byju's valuation by nearly half to $11.15 billion, according to a filing seen by Reuters. Byju's legal spokesperson said the visit by ED officials to one of the company's offices in Bangalore was related to a routine inquiry under foreign exchange laws. The statement issued by the agency said the company also remitted 97.5 billion rupees to various foreign jurisdictions between 2011 and 2023 in the name of overseas direct investments. Byju's spokesperson said the company had provided authorities with all the information they requested.

April 26 (Reuters) - With more and more lawyers at major law firms using fast-advancing generative artificial intelligence tools, legal AI startup Harvey said Wednesday that it raised $21 million in fresh investor cash. Sequoia Capital, which is leading the Series A fundraising round, said more than 15,000 law firms are on a waiting list to start using Harvey. The company says it builds custom large language models for law firms. Technology companies and investors have rushed to embrace large language model-based generative AI since Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT debuted in November. Casetext in March released its AI legal assistant product, CoCounsel, which uses GPT-4 to speed up tasks like legal research, contract analysis and document review.

☆ US-China tensions pose big economic risks because the 2 superpowers are more codependent than ever before, former SEC chief Jay Clayton says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Former SEC chief Jay Clayton said the US and China have become increasingly codependent in recent years. If tensions rise between the two superpowers, it could pose huge risks for both economies, he told CNBC. "We are deeply embedded in China... That means that any kind of sharp pullback is going to have significant economic consequences." "Our largest, most important global company has that kind of co-dependency with China," Clayton said on Friday. That means that any kind of sharp pullback is going to have significant economic consequences," Clayton said, adding that a "pivot has to come."

Bharadwaj, a former India managing director of Sequoia Capital who now leads venture capital firm A91 Partners. Indian VC firm Blume Ventures said in an April report consumption outside the top 30 million Indian households dropped sharply, and is driven by a "tiny superuser set". "Indian startups are not catering to a billion consumers. And only 271 Indian startups raised funding in Q1 2023, compared with 561 last year, according to CB Insights. It invested $3 billion in Indian companies in 2021 and another $500 million in 2022, by April that year, Reuters calculations show.

Organizations: & & .

☆ This startup that automates SME invoices with AI just raised $8 million. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck Triver used to raise the fresh funds.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The startup was founded by former Funding Circle executive Jerome Le Luel and is backed by Stride.vc. A London-based startup that will provide instant working capital to SMEs has emerged from stealth with an $8 million funding round. Like most forms of short-term working capital, financing solutions for the SME market are often expensive and time-consuming. Most providers run checks based on e-commerce data, but Le Luel believes that Open Banking data allows for better risk and analytics modeling. The company wants to launch its platform within this quarter and said that it had a "line-of-sight" to a very profitable business by 2027.

☆ Data startup Cybersyn raises $63 mln in Snowflake-led funding round
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 12 (Reuters) - Data startup Cybersyn said it has raised $62.9 million from investors including Snowflake Inc (SNOW.N), Coatue Management and Sequoia Capital, its chief executive told Reuters. The investment marks the first time that Snowflake has led a startup funding round, as the data cloud giant looks to expand its data marketplace for enterprise users to acquire live and ready-to-use dataset. Cybersyn plans to use the capital to expand its eight-person team and acquire more proprietary data to create data products with a focus on macroeconomic trends. Besides using public data sources, the startup is also working on identifying and partnering with proprietary data sources, including buying aggregated anonymized data from non-data provider corporations. Snowflake Marketplace allows users to access third-party data and pay for specific datasets, and combine it with their own corporate data using its platform.

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