sequoia

AI security startup AIR has completed a $50 million financing round, led by Sequoia Capital with an initial $10 million in the first round, followed by Greenoaks leading a second round of $40 million, with participation from Swish, Netz, and several angel investors.The company was founded by Yair Saban and Niv Hoffman, senior members of Israel's Unit 8200, and offers an AI agent security platform that can discover AI agents operating within enterprises, continuously review the skills and tools they use, and prevent them from interacting with non-compliant software or external sources, while providing a vetted AI agent plugin and skills marketplace.

Stanford Business School Professor Ilya Strebulaev, in collaboration with Blake Jackson, released the 2026 Strebulaev-Jackson Venture Capital Firm Rankings, based on nearly 30 years of data from over 230,000 investments and nearly 13,000 VCs. The research estimates that about 5% of VCs generate approximately 90% of the industry's profits. The top five are Sequoia Capital (10,158 points), Andreessen Horowitz (8,292 points), Accel, DST Global, and Tiger Global. Among them, Parkway Venture Capital (19th place) and Notable (20th place) made it into the top 20, but are not well-known leading brands.The rankings are based on six major factors: discount valuation, dilution adjustment, net profit (after costs), value added (lead investments and board seats), human capital decay (three-and-a-half-year half-life), and credit allocation between institutions and individuals (25% for the investing institution and 75% for the current institution). Of the top 100, 62 are located in California, 19 in New York, and 6 each in Massachusetts and Texas. 21 were established in 2015 or later, and 23 of the best investments are in frontier AI or AI infrastructure companies, with OpenAI listed as the best investment by 4 firms, xAI by 3, and Anthropic and Perplexity by 2 each. The ranking methodology has a correlation of only about 0.27 with the Midas List, with SV Angel investing in about 139 unicorns ranked 31st, and Thrive with only 47 unicorns ranked 8th. This ranking is the result of research by Stanford professors and does not constitute investment advice.

According to The Information, AI infrastructure startup Trajectory announced the completion of a $40 million financing round, with a post-money valuation of $300 million, co-invested by Sequoia Capital. The specific financing round and other investors have not been disclosed.Trajectory was founded by researchers from tech companies such as Google and Apple, and primarily helps businesses customize open-source AI models for specific business needs, as well as optimize the software toolchain that supports AI Agent operations (referred to as "Agent Harness"). As the costs of using closed-source large models continue to rise, more and more companies are looking for alternatives: on one hand, they are reducing costs by fine-tuning and customizing open-source models, and on the other hand, they are improving the Agent execution framework to enable AI models to more effectively call tools and execute tasks.This trend is driving a new wave of entrepreneurial enthusiasm around model adaptation and Agent infrastructure. Trajectory aims to address key issues faced by enterprises in deploying AI Agents, including model performance optimization, task execution reliability, and adaptation to enterprise scenarios. The company hopes to help businesses build more efficient and cost-effective AI applications by providing model customization and Agent operation infrastructure.Investors believe that as AI evolves from simple chatbots to Agents capable of autonomously executing complex tasks, a new layer of infrastructure around model optimization and Agent engineering will become an important market. In recent years, Sequoia has also continued to increase its investment in the AI infrastructure sector, including investments in AI Agents and enterprise AI applications.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. defense technology startup Neros has completed a $250 million equity financing, raising its post-money valuation to $2.5 billion, led by Sequoia Capital and the American Strategic Technology Fund, with participation from existing investors such as Thiel Capital.Neros plans to accelerate the research and development and mass production of the attack drone Archer and the interceptor drone Bandit, and promote localized manufacturing among allies. The company's current annual production capacity is about 14,000 units, with a goal to increase Archer's annual production capacity to 1 million units by 2028.This round of funding will also be used to expand the employee count from about 200 to 350 and upgrade the handheld terminals used to control the drones and the Archer AI model, enabling it to maintain target lock in GPS-denied environments and coordinate with other drones.

According to a report by Fortune, the cybersecurity startup Corma, established in 2025, announced the completion of a $60 million seed round financing, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Coatue.Corma is headquartered in Tel Aviv and San Francisco, and six weeks ago, it deployed its first AI model to several Fortune 100 and 500 companies across various industries (covering healthcare, financial services, energy, critical infrastructure, and retail).Unlike current cybersecurity models primarily trained by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc., for "offensive" purposes, Corma's trained model focuses on "defensive" strategies, concentrating on log and audit data analysis, identifying threats among massive events, and maintaining consistent strategies across thousands of operations. According to the company, its model has helped clients reduce threat response times by 94%.

Yushu Technology officially launched online and offline subscriptions on August 10, with an issue price of 150.80 yuan per share. The total market value after issuance is approximately 60.993 billion yuan, with total fundraising of nearly 6.1 billion yuan, and the issuance price-to-earnings ratio is 219.23 times, significantly higher than the industry average of 38.56 times.Meituan holds a total of 9.65% of Yushu's shares before issuance through its three subsidiaries, making it the largest external institutional shareholder; Sequoia China holds a total of 7.11%, ranking second. Based on the issue price, the two institutions will receive substantial paper returns. Sequoia first participated in the capital increase in December 2019 with 15 million yuan, at which time the post-investment valuation was only 150 million yuan.A fund under DJI planned to invest 10.1286 million yuan in 2018 for a corresponding shareholding of about 17%, and completed the business registration, but chose to withdraw its investment in 2019. If this investment had been retained until now, the corresponding market value would be approximately 3.7 billion yuan based on the issue price. DJI did not explain the reason for the withdrawal, but in 2019, the company announced an anti-corruption notice, disclosing the handling of 45 employees suspected of corruption, which led to a complete halt of the investment department's work.Among other major shareholders, Jingwei Venture Capital holds 5.45%, Shunwei Capital holds 4.42%, and CITIC Securities holds a total of 4.49%. In terms of strategic placement, DeepSeek received 933,400 shares (subscription of 141 million yuan), and Shanghai Qishan Investment, a subsidiary of Tencent, received 903,300 shares. CITIC Securities, as the sole sponsor, will receive approximately 145 million yuan in sponsorship underwriting fees and will be allocated 808,900 shares through co-investment. Yushu also reminds that the issuance price-to-earnings ratio is significantly higher than the industry average, posing a risk of stock price decline. The deadline for payment for successful applicants is August 12.

According to Bloomberg, Sequoia Capital has completed its latest funding round, which amounts to $10 billion. So far this year, the firm has returned a total of $5 billion in profits to investors outside of SpaceX.Sequoia Capital's new co-leaders, Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, plan to invest $2.5 billion in the AI company Anthropic, which will become the largest investment in Sequoia's 54-year history. Previously, Sequoia had favored investments in OpenAI, xAI, etc., and only planned to invest in Anthropic for the first time in January 2025, but has now decided to significantly increase its stake, indicating a bold bet on the AI sector.

According to South Korean media Asiae, six leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital, a16z, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and NEA, announced the signing of a strategic investment cooperation memorandum (MOU) with the National Pension Service (NPS) of Korea, planning to jointly explore investment opportunities, share investment information, and strengthen global venture capital布局.Furthermore, the South Korean government is accelerating the promotion of policies to attract overseas venture capital, coupled with the launch of the "National Growth Fund," which has a scale of 200 trillion won. The market expects that the Korean venture capital sector will see a simultaneous inflow of policy funds, private capital, and overseas capital, with strategic industries such as AI and semiconductors likely to receive more investment. However, industry insiders warn that if a large amount of capital concentrates on a few popular companies, it may inflate company valuations and create bubbles, potentially facing valuation adjustment pressure during future IPOs and mergers and acquisitions, affecting fund returns.

According to Fortune, American public safety AI company Peregrine Technologies has completed a $250 million Series D funding round, achieving a valuation of $6.8 billion, nearly tripling from the previous $2.5 billion valuation in just 15 months. This round was led by existing investors including Sequoia Capital.Peregrine's core product is a government data integration platform that unifies existing city data such as police records, 911 logs, license databases, sensor data, and emergency management systems for real-time retrieval. It also features built-in role-based access control and complete audit tracking, while the platform itself does not collect or hold any data. Currently, the platform serves over 400 law enforcement agencies, covering approximately 125 million people in North America, and is operating security integration centers for 8 of the 11 host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.Co-founder and CEO Nick Noone previously led Palantir's special operations business, including the intelligence platform tracking ISIS; co-founder and CTO Ben Rudolph previously built data infrastructure at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The company stated that the new funds will be used for product development, expanding the engineering and implementation teams, international expansion, and employee mobility arrangements. Noone indicated that they have not yet decided whether to pursue an IPO but are preparing internal infrastructure for a potential listing.The government AI market is estimated to be valued at approximately $25 billion by 2025 and is expected to grow to $109 billion by 2035. However, the ongoing civil liberties controversies surrounding AI law enforcement monitoring remain a persistent challenge for Peregrine.

According to the official announcement, the artificial intelligence company Anthropic has completed a $65 billion Series H financing round, with a post-money valuation reaching $965 billion, surpassing its competitor OpenAI for the first time, becoming the highest-valued AI startup in the world.This financing round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital, and Sequoia Capital. In addition, the company plans to expand its computing power to meet the growing demand for its Claude product and to promote the scaling of its products.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Parallel Web Systems, an AI infrastructure company founded by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, has completed a $100 million Series B financing round, with a post-money valuation of $2 billion.This round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from existing investors such as Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. Parallel provides efficient web search and access control infrastructure for "long-cycle" AI agents, having raised a total of $230 million, with around 50 employees, serving over 100,000 developers and enterprise clients. The current focus is on expanding the sales, marketing, and R&D teams, continuously laying out the enterprise-level "AI agent web" scenario.

Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) recalled in his new book that after the "9·4" regulatory policy was introduced in 2017, venture capital firms as a whole became more cautious, and Sequoia Capital, which had originally expressed investment intentions, also paused related cooperation. He stated, "Seeing the venture capitalists collectively silent during our most difficult September, I was actually quite disappointed."CZ revealed that prior to this, Sequoia had expressed investment interest at the beginning of He Yi's joining, but chose to wait and see in light of the policy impact. Subsequently, Binance achieved rapid growth from September to October, with the number of users increasing from about 20,000 in August to about 120,000 by late October, ranking among the top ten exchanges globally and becoming profitable.CZ stated that by the end of October, after the risk phase had basically passed, Sequoia re-expressed its investment intentions, but they had proposed to raise the valuation requirement. Ultimately, the two sides could not reach an agreement due to valuation differences. The other party then proposed to pursue legal proceedings, and a week later, four large boxes of legal documents were delivered. CZ said this was the "first time in his life becoming a defendant." CZ mentioned that he later learned that the lawsuit was led by Sequoia's legal team in the U.S., who are skilled at using the media to create public opinion, "the media reporters knew before I, the party involved."

According to Jinshi News, Sequoia Capital plans to make a significant investment in the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. Anthropic is seeking to raise funds at a valuation of $35 billion, aiming to raise a total of $25 billion or more.Microsoft and Nvidia have committed to investing a total of up to $15 billion in the company.

Focusing on embodied intelligence, Chinese high-tech startup X Square Robot (X²) announced that it has completed a 1 billion yuan A++ round of financing. This round was jointly invested by top investment institutions and various local platforms, including ByteDance, Sequoia China, Beijing Information Industry Development Fund, Shenzhen Capital Group, Nanshan Zhanxin Investment, and Xichuang Investment.It is reported that this is also the first investment since the establishment of the Shenzhen Capital Group AI Fund. Notably, in addition to ByteDance, X Square has also received investments from Meituan and Alibaba in previous financing rounds, making it the only embodied intelligence company in China to be simultaneously invested in by these three major internet giants.

The prediction market platform Kalshi has completed a $1 billion financing round, with a new valuation of $11 billion, led by Sequoia.This round of financing comes less than two months after its previous $300 million financing at a $5 billion valuation. Kalshi allows users to bet on various events and operates within legal boundaries, with an annual trading volume exceeding $50 billion. Its main competitor Polymarket is also rumored to be seeking financing at a valuation of $12-15 billion.

ChainCatcher news, the artificial intelligence laboratory Harmonic announced the completion of a $100 million Series B funding round, led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Charlie Cheever, bringing the post-money valuation to $900 million.Harmonic is currently building software verification and code verification capabilities based on Mathematical Superintelligence (MSI), primarily applied in industries such as blockchain and financial services. The company raised $75 million in its Series A funding round last September.