They’re now Peak XV Partners! The old Sequoia Capital India and SEA can’t come on the phone right now, well, because they’ve just rebranded. 

On June 7, Sequoia Capital announced that they will be splitting into three. 

The US branch will retain the Sequoia Capital branding, while the China branch will go by HongShan, and the India and Southeast Asia branch will be known as Peak XV Partners.

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💔 Three's a crowd

Despite being under the same Sequoia brand, the regional branches operate independently. They don’t review each other’s deals, but do share funds for back-office operations.

But here’s where things got tricky, and some reasons why they split.  

• Conflict between portfolios. Because they don’t align their deals, the firm risks investing in competing startups. This already happened with Stripe (US-backed) and Airwallex (China-backed). 
• Brand confusion. The Sequoia branding also doesn’t translate well for Chinese counterparts. 

“Many Chinese entrepreneurs probably don’t even know how to spell Sequoia,” said Neil Shen, head of Sequoia China. 

There’s a bunch of other reasons, like geopolitical tensions and compliance challenges. 

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🌲More ‘bout Sequoia

The VC firm is known for its successes with Airbnb and Whatsapp. Sequoia’s SEA branch has also made early bets on unicorns like GoTo Group, eFishery, and Insider. 

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🤔 What the future holds? 

The new firms will set up their own infrastructure and stop sharing profits by the end of the year.  

• The split will be completed “no later than” March 2024.