Sequoia Capital announced the launch of a cryptocurrency investment fund, and the driving force behind it was this woman who chose ALL IN CRYPTO

On February 18, Sequoia Capital announced the launch of a $500-600 million cryptocurrency investment fund, its first industry-specific fund since its inception in 1972.

But how did all this happen? Why did Sequoia Capital make strides from a traditional first-tier dollar fund to try to lead Web3 investment?

The answer is simple, someone is pushing and leading, her name is MICHELLE BAILHE.

To a certain extent, she changed Sequoia Capital.

In September 2020, after migrating from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman to Sequoia Capital, MICHELLE began to actively lead investments in Crypto, and led investments in FIREBLOCKS and FTX.

In the words of someone inside Sequoia, Michelle Bailhe is the real ALL IN CRYPTO!

Another similar partner is Shaun Maguire, who has led investments in projects such as DeSo, ParallelFi, and Faraway.

Therefore, Sequoia Capital’s current investment in the crypto space is mainly Michelle Bailhe and Shaun Maguire in Lead, followed by Alfred Lin, Ravi Gupta and Konstantine Buhler also taking Crypto as a priority option.

At present, some of its Portfolios and the responsible persons are as follows:

Michelle Bailh (FTX, Fireblocks)

Shaun Maguire (DeSo, ParallelFi, Iron Fish, Faraway, Strips, and more seeds in stealth)

Alfred Lin (FTX)

Mike Vernal (Starkware)

Ravi Gupta (Fireblocks)

Roelof Botha (Square now Block)

Andrew Reed (Robinhood)

Stephanie Zhan (stealth seed, Brud acquired by Dapper Labs)

At least in the second half of last year, Sequoia Capital did not intend to set up a dedicated crypto fund. In Maguire's original words, "We don't want the lessons of crypto to be siloed just in a crypto team. Currencies are only isolated in a cryptocurrency team)”, but that possibility was not ruled out at the time.

Perhaps inspired by a16z, dedicated crypto funds are becoming more and more popular. Katie Haun, former head of a16z Crypto, believes that it is impossible to succeed in crypto investing without a dedicated team.

We don't care about Maguire's background, etc., but we are curious about her views on Web3/Crypto investment, for example, she is particularly concerned about the company or founder's storytelling ability, and thinks that the potential of WEB2 entrepreneurs to transform WEB3 is underestimated. Part of the content comes from Past podcast interviews.