San Francisco — Sequoia Capital Shuts Down Its 17-Year Scout Program

Sequoia Capital is shutting down its scout program, the venture firm said in a memo posted to X this week, ending a mechanism it pioneered 17 years ago that let outside founders and operators write checks on the firm's behalf, according to TechCrunch.

The same memo also announced the closure of Sequoia's London office, TechCrunch reported. The firm framed both moves as part of a broader push toward "putting more energy behind fewer people and things," rather than a direct repudiation of the scout model, according to the outlet.

What does a VC scout program actually do?

Under the scout model Sequoia created, the firm selects founders and operators outside the partnership and gives them capital to make small, early-stage bets on their own networks, TechCrunch reported. The scout, not a Sequoia partner, sources and often sits closer to the deal, while Sequoia gets a first look at companies it might otherwise miss and the option to lead a larger round later.

For the individual scout, the arrangement carries benefits beyond the checks themselves. Being tapped as a scout can bring a founder closer to a firm whose capital they may want someday, or to a partner track inside the fund itself, TechCrunch reported. Former Sequoia scout Roxanne Varza, who runs the Paris startup campus Station F and held the scout role from 2020 to 2025, told TechCrunch that the position had often served as "a stepping stone for aspiring investment managers," and that she could not name all the scouts who have since joined or built funds of their own.

Why are investors skeptical the model still works?

Not every investor signed on to the structure even when it was spreading across the industry. Venture capitalist Sheel Mohnot wrote on X this week that the model "never made sense" to him, arguing that scouts themselves "don't really care that much about the investments," and that a firm can still miss marquee deals despite running one — pointing to Sequoia's miss on Uber as an example, according to TechCrunch. Mohnot predicted "other firms will shutter theirs too."

Sequoia's own memo did not make that argument directly, TechCrunch reported; the firm instead described the shift as a matter of focus rather than a verdict on scouting's returns. But the timing — after 17 years of running the program it invented — has led industry watchers cited by TechCrunch to read the decision as evidence the broad, "spray and pray" version of scouting has reached a limit.

How are other firms changing their scout networks instead of ending them?

Rather than closing its scout network, rival firm Andreessen Horowitz has narrowed it. The firm built a global scout network aimed at surfacing deals in the U.S. and in smaller European hubs, TechCrunch reported, but a16z partner Gabriel Vasquez told the outlet earlier this year that the firm had reworked the program to concentrate resources on fewer people. "They get more budget, but we have reduced the number," Vasquez said, describing scouts who now get more capital but are expected to be more active — including co-hosting dinners on the firm's behalf, according to TechCrunch.

That contrast — Sequoia eliminating its program entirely versus a16z consolidating around a smaller, better-resourced group — suggests firms are not abandoning outside-check deal sourcing altogether so much as rewriting the terms of it, TechCrunch reported.

Does the London office closure signal a retreat from Europe?

TechCrunch cautioned against reading too much into the London closure on its own, noting that the city retains an active AI investing scene. The scout program's end carries more weight for the industry, the outlet reported, precisely because Sequoia built the model from scratch and because so many competing firms copied it afterward.

What's next for venture scout programs?

• Watch whether additional top-tier firms announce scout-program changes in the coming months, as Mohnot predicted on X.
• Watch how Andreessen Horowitz's narrower, higher-budget scout model performs relative to the broader approach Sequoia is retiring.
• Watch whether former Sequoia scouts, such as Varza, publicly discuss what replaces the role as a pipeline into VC partnerships.
• Watch Sequoia's public statements for any further detail on how it will source early deal flow without the scout network, beyond the "fewer people and things" framing in its memo.

Sequoia has not detailed, according to the reporting, what if anything will replace the scout program's function of surfacing early deals through outside operators. The firm's memo, as described by TechCrunch, framed the decision as internal reallocation rather than a statement on whether scout investing works.

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