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Venture

Late-Stage Drives Sequoia Capital鈥檚 Growing Funds

In the world of venture capital portfolio theory, it鈥檚 said that portfolio returns follow a power law distribution: roughly 90 percent of the gains come from 10 percent of the portfolio鈥檚 positions. And, increasingly, it feels like venture capital firms鈥 LP capital raises follow a similar pattern. It seems like there鈥檚 a lot of money sloshing around the market, but the bulk of it is going to a relatively small number of firms.

Like its arboreal namesake, is, by Silicon Valley standards, old and deeply-rooted. It鈥檚 also big.

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For the past few months, rumors have been swirling that Sequoia Capital is raising a colossal growth-stage fund. On Tuesday, the Financial Times that the stalwart firm has already closed $6 billion of what could be an $8 billion pool of capital.

Let鈥檚 run with that $8 billion number for a second. If the average U.S. $100 bill is 0.0043 inches (0.109 millimeters), and you were to somehow stack 80 million Benjamins ($8 billion) on top of one another, it would be 28,666 feet tall, approximately equal to 104.24 times the height of , a 275-foot sequoia tree living in Sequoia National Park.

Of course, that鈥檚 just one of Sequoia Capital鈥檚 many, many funds.

Sequoia Capital鈥檚 geographic scope is global; it manages geo-targeted funds aimed at startups in markets like the U.S., , , and Israel. And although the firm invests across all stages 鈥 ranging from seed through its deal scout program, all the way up until a company goes public 鈥 its funds targeting the latter half of the cycle have been a growth area for Sequoia, at least from an assets-under-management perspective.

Take its latest growth fund as an example. At $8 billion, Fund III four times the size of its $2 billion and over eleven times larger than , as the chart below shows.

There isn鈥檛 a way around saying that this fund is huge.

But it鈥檚 not the only growth fund Sequoia is currently raising. Last week, Sequoia Capital China growth-stage fund. The Wall Street Journal that the fund is targeting between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion for China Growth Fund V. As it happens, that鈥檚 twice the size of its China Growth Fund and over three times larger than .

 

The Wall Street Journal report from March said Sequoia “is raising three funds totaling up to $2.5 billion for China.” With somewhere between $1.6 and $1.8 billion accounted for in the growth vehicle, that leaves somewhere $700 to $900 million to divvy up between two other funds. Sequoia Capital filed initial paperwork for and in June.

That same Journal report said Sequoia is targeting up to $1 billion for its eighth U.S.-focused growth fund and $550 million for its sixteenth U.S. venture fund.

However, it鈥檚 still small potatoes compared to SoftBank鈥檚 Vision Fund, a mind-bending $100 billion capital pool that鈥檚 shaping the arc of the global venture capital market. As The Economist described in , “incumbents will need to bulk up.” It continued, 鈥淪equoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley鈥檚 most famous names, is raising its biggest-ever fund in response.鈥

, a general partner at , in March that the VC market has “bifurcated into this world of 鈥榟aves鈥 and 鈥榟ave nots.鈥” The Vision Fund, she said, 鈥渉as created this layer of 鈥榮uper-haves.鈥 And the 鈥榮uper-haves鈥 are almost untouchable in a way because they鈥檙e in a whole different stratosphere from a competitive perspective.鈥

All signs point to a conclusion that by raising such a large, globally-scoped growth-stage fund, Sequoia Capital is trying to compete against a new queen- and kingmaker on the block.

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