Sequoia Capital partner Luciana Lixandru confirmed the storied venture capital firm plans to expand its team in Europe, following the departure of long-time partner Matt Miller at the end of last year.
Speaking at the Sifted Summit in London on Thursday, Lixandru said the firm is bullish on Europe and thinks “generational businesses” are — and will continue — to be built on the continent, name-dropping the likes of Revolut, ElevenLabs and Trade Republic.
To capitalise on that opportunity, the firm will be hiring additional people, she said. Sequoia’s investment team in Europe is currently made up of Lixandru, along with partners George Robson, a former Revolut employee, Julien Bek, formerly an investor at Accel and Anas Biad, formerly an investor at Silver Lake.
Miller, who departed the firm in December, announced last month that he’d raised his own $400m fund, Evantic, to invest in B2B AI startups in Europe, the US and Israel.
Overhyped: AI
There is a lot of hype around AI, she said — and “valuations are very high” — but deals aren’t being struck in the same hurried manner that they were during the Covid investment bubble.
Aside from AI, Lixandru said she’s seeing a lot of smart talent move into robotics. Europe is well-positioned to build great robotics businesses, she added; there are great technical universities, including TUM in Munich and ETH in Zurich, churning out top talent; and a strong industrial base.
She also predicted that we’ll see plenty of successful businesses working on stablecoins. Europe remains the best place in the world to build a fintech company, she said.
Lixandru was speaking at Sifted Summit in London, which this week plays host to other leading tech figures such as Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
