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Peak XV, Tiger Global, others urge PM Modi to review India’s online gaming tax

Tiger Global, DST Global, Peak XV, Steadview Capital, and Kotak Private Equity are among global and Indian investors who have asked the India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reconsider the recently announced taxation on online gaming.

The Goods and Services Tax Council, which comprises top federal and state finance ministers, said earlier this month that it had agreed to levy a 28% indirect tax on online gaming, casinos and horse racing. The council said there should be no distinction between “game of skill” and “game of chance,” closing a loophole that has allowed fantasy sports companies to justify their offerings as skill-based.

“The decision of the 50th GST Council has the unintended consequence of equating the constitutionally protected legitimate online skill gaming industry with gambling, betting and other “games of chance,” a group of 30 investors wrote in a letter to Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, on Friday.

“We invested in this sector with the vision to make India the gaming capital of the world, which would help in generating, among other things, high-skilled jobs, billions in foreign capital and make the country a net exporter of innovation in gaming and allied areas such as animation, artificial intelligence and visual effects,” said the letter, titled “urgent prayer.”

Online gaming is one of the fastest growing consumer internet businesses in India. Fantasy sports startups — including Dream Sports, backed by Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global and valued at over $8 billion, and Sequoia India-backed Mobile Premier League — have altogether raised billions as a generation of internet users build a habit of making bets on real-world sporting events in hopes to make money.

Through the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by TechCrunch, the investors have urged New Delhi to examine the following aspects before implementation of the taxation rule:

a. If “full value of bets” is understood in a manner where GST is levied on every contest played every time with fully taxed winnings, the GST burden will increase by 1,100% and on account of taxation of redeployed player winnings, the same money will get taxed repeatedly resulting in a scenario where over 50-70%% of every rupee will go towards GST , thereby making the online real money skill gaming business model unviable. This will lead to write off of investments made and would hurt the investor confidence.

b. If “full value of bets” for the purpose of levy of GST on online gaming is the full deposit value i.e. deposits made by users and not taxed again if the winnings are redeployed to play a game (at par with casinos), there will be a 350% increase in GST burden. This will result in the closure of most gaming startups and will require major restructuring across the industry to survive. Importantly, as deposits for online games are digital and made via authorised payment channels, it would allow GST authorities to track and verify all GSTfilings and remove any scope for manipulation by unscrupulous actors.

c. If 28% GST is to be levied on the Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR)/Platform fees, there would be a 55% increase in GST quantum. This would ensure that the Indian online gaming operators are able to survive and are able to be a key contributor to the Indian economy. In addition, such a suggestion of levying GST on GGR would be in line with internationally accepted and proven practices.

More to follow.

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Dolly Parton, Whoopi Goldberg are anti-holograms; expert warns they ‘can never fully ensure’ against use

Although not a new concept, the idea of immortalizing a human through holograms, potentially AI-created, is becoming more relevant as it gets discussed by Hollywood stars. 

Both country legend Dolly Parton and actor and media personality Whoopi Goldberg have recently noted their aversion to the permanency holograms allow, with Goldberg going so far as to make legal provisions against the technology in her will.

Fox News Digital spoke with an expert who said that while certain steps can be taken to protect your name and likeness while alive, things become a whole different ball game after death.

JUSTINE BATEMAN RIPS AI USE IN HOLLYWOOD, SAYS TECHNOLOGY IS ‘GETTING AWAY FROM BEING HUMAN’

Dolly Parton and Whoopi Goldberg have both expressed they have no desire to be made into a hologram after their death. (NBC / Michael Loccisano / File)

“Unfortunately, in the age of AI, celebrities can never fully ensure that their name and likeness won’t be used as a hologram post-mortem without their permission,” Abe Lichy, partner and chair of the intellectual property practice at McLaughlin & Stern, tells Fox News Digital.

Dolly Parton admitted she doesn’t want to leave her “soul here on this Earth.” (David Becker / File)

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When asked if she had any interest in mirroring Swedish supergroup Abba’s use of virtual avatars during their “Abba: Voyage” concert, Parton was dismissive.

“I think I’ve left a great body of work behind,” she said during a recent press conference, per The Independent. “I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved [with] because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this Earth,” she said.

“I think with some of this stuff, I’ll be grounded here forever. … I’ll be around, we’ll find ways to keep me here,” she added.

Whoopi Goldberg discussed holograms on “The View.” (Screenshot / ABC / The View)

Goldberg was more adamant in her declaration against the tech.

“I don’t want to be a hologram. That’s been in my will for 15 years,” she said in a July episode of “The View.”

“They don’t ask you, that’s the thing,” she said to co-host Joy Behar, who suggested that she had not been asked yet if she’d like to be made into a hologram. 

Whoopi Goldberg said she has taken legal action to ensure she is not used in conjunction with AI after her death. (Paula Lobo / Disney General Entertainment Content / File)

“They just do it, and then you go, ‘Hey, isn’t that Tupac? Wait a minute. … I don’t want that.’ It’s a little freaky, creepy, yeah.”

In 2012, a hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur was used in a performance at the Coachella music festival. 

As the interest and debate around AI grows, Lichy hopes they will “push lawmakers to pass clear national copyright standards.”

“Until there are national copyright standards in place ensuring such post-mortem rights, this is going to be a state-specific issue dependent on where the celebrity lived at the time of death,” Lichy said.

He warned that “talent attorneys can try to curtail post-mortem usage rights and post-mortem derivative works in the rights granted to production companies and media networks in the talent agreements. Even so, not even copyright protection lasts forever, so, at some point, protections may be gone.”

Snoop Dogg and a hologram of Tupac Shakur perform at Coachella in 2012. (Christopher Polk / Getty Images for Coachella / File)

A spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) echoed Lichy’s comments in a statement to Fox News Digital, noting that “innovation has often intersected with art and moved the creative process forward. But that exciting progress must always respect artists’ and rightsholders’ choices, values, and consent.

“That’s true with all forms of creative expression but especially with highly invasive AI systems that commercially misappropriate a performer’s name, image, likeness, and voice. The fundamental truth is each artist must be free to decide for themself whether or not to participate in projects like AI holograms that exploit and profit off their images, voices, and identities.”

RINGO STARR SAYS BEATLES WOULD NEVER USE AI TO FAKE JOHN LENNON’S VOICE AFTER PAUL MCCARTNEY FACES BACKLASH

Dolly Parton and Whoopi Goldberg are not interested in being immortalized creatively after death. (Mike Marsland | Michael Loccisano)

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Lichy suspects that Parton and Goldberg are likely against their name and likeness being eternal and their body of work becoming a misrepresentation of who they are.

“The beauty in acting and music is the element of human imperfection.  It’s what draws other humans to the craft and performance. With AI, that art form is lost. … There’s a certain beauty in knowing something will end – people appreciate the present more,” he says.

Caroline Thayer is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Follow Caroline Thayer on Twitter at @carolinejthayer. Story tips can be sent to caroline.thayer@fox.com.

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How To Merge Cells In Microsoft Excel And Google Sheets

We need to briefly cover what happens when you merge several cells in Excel or Google Sheets. Or, more specifically, what does not. The merge cells function is designed to combine the actual cells themselves, not their contents. While spreadsheet programs can be used to conduct mathematical operations if you know the formulas, merging cells is not a shortcut.

In the event you merge two cells that both have something in them, then only the contents of the leftmost cell will carry over into the resulting merged cell. Any other cells you merged will have their contents deleted. You can’t use cell merging to combine numbers or words — if you want a larger cell to share contents, you’ll need to copy and paste the contents of the component cells over to the lead cell before you merge them, or you’ll lose it all.

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Ricky Gervais Almost Played Simon Pegg’s Character In The Mission: Impossible Franchise

Despite multiple starts and stops during pre-production, things finally started falling into place after Tom Cruise binge-watched J.J. Abrams’ ABC spy drama series “Alias” starring Jennifer Garner (per The Hollywood Reporter). Along with writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Abrams wanted to humanize Ethan Hunt after John Woo’s over-the-top take on the character, giving him a suburban life outside the spy world and a fiancee, Julia (Michelle Monaghan).

Abrams already had a relationship with Ricky Gervais, who had appeared in the 2004 “Alias” episode “Facade.” When Gervais left “Mission: Impossible III” in order to star in “For Your Consideration,” Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright had only just made a huge splash with their instant-classic zombie comedy, “Shaun of the Dead.” Abrams was a massive fan of the movie and Pegg suddenly found himself at the top of the list to play Benji.

Initially, Pegg didn’t really have much of a desire to go into big-budget filmmaking after having complete creative control on his early projects with Wright. In a now-hilarious aside during an interview asking Pegg and Wright if they had plans to leave the UK for Hollywood, Pegg quipped, “It’s not like we’re going to go away and do, I don’t know … ‘Mission: Impossible III.'”

Pegg eventually accepted the role that would catapult his acting career into franchise filmmaking with the “Mission Impossible” films, “Star Trek,” and “Star Wars.” But his big break fortunately never made him look like a Hollywood sell-out. “So it was a huge irony that I’d said, ‘I’m not going to go off and do this,” he told The Guardian. “But then, at that time, there was this attitude that anyone who went off to Hollywood was betraying their roots in some sense or selling out. It’s not like you cross some misty bridge at night and never come home again.”

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Kasha raises $21M Series B led by Knife Capital to expand health access platform across Africa

As Africa’s youthful population continues to grow exponentially, it’s of the utmost importance that entrepreneurs create various healthcare solutions that will cater to the medical needs of the continent’s future. While the pandemic made investors pay attention to Africa’s private healthcare space, women’s health — a subcategory dominated by women founders that broadly addresses women’s menstrual and reproductive health — is subtly neglected.

Yet, considering other emerging markets have set a precedent, it’s only a matter of time before this category gets the venture capital dollars it deserves; the recent $21 million Series B investment in Rwandan startup Kasha is a subtle testament to the fact.

Kasha isn’t the typical women’s health startup, though. The best way to describe the startup, founded in 2016 by CEO Joanna Bichsel, is that it’s an e-commerce platform — serving a wide range of customers — with women’s health elements.

The four-year-old startup provides a digital retail and last-mile distribution platform for pharmaceuticals and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) with a specific product focus on women’s healthcare needs and household items. Its customers include individual consumers, small resellers, hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics. They can order products ranging from sanitary pads and contraceptives to diapers and cleaning supplies via its website or USSD.

In its first year, Kasha strictly approached the Rwandan market with a direct-to-consumer model offering last-mile delivery of health products for women and newborns. But it wouldn’t take long for small shops to begin placing orders for these same products. The e-commerce platform, easily sensing an opportunity, ventured into wholesale after acquiring the necessary pharmaceutical license to serve pharmacies, hospitals and clinics. Serving a beachhead wholesale and retail market, Kasha products cut through newborn child health, maternal health and menstrual hygiene to family planning, sexual and reproductive health and noncommunicable diseases.

“We have always understood that women are the most influential customer in the health space, both because they have the most health needs and are decision-makers for health in the household and unlock the rest of the population. Since many health products for women are stigmatized, Kasha has purposely offered a wide variety of products, including personal care products like soap, health products like contraceptives, and household staples like rice,” Bichsel told TechCrunch in an interview. Bichsel also noted that the platform’s most sold products include HIV self-tests, contraceptives, and pregnancy tests. “We have continued to expand our variety of products purely from customer demand and the needs of the different customer segments who purchase from us, including small kiosk shops, pharmacies, hospitals, clinics and consumers.”

Starting in Rwanda, Kasha raised $1.5 million in seed funding from angel and impact investors. In late 2020, after expansion into Kenya, Kasha secured a $3.6 million Series A from Finnfund, Swedfund, DFC and Mastercard Corporate. Knife Capital led this recent Series B with participation from Finnfund, DFC, Tim Koogle (ex-Yahoo CEO), Beyond Capital Ventures, Altree Capital, Bamboo Capital’s BLOC Smart Africa Fund and Five35 Ventures.

“The team [led by founder and CEO Joanna Bichsel] have proven their mettle in scaling rapidly to date and this round of capital will help to accelerate that,” noted Koogle on the growth-stage deal. In addition to its operations in Kenya and Rwanda, Kasha, which has recently registered in South Africa, will use the investment to push its platform in the country and also West Africa later this year.

Some members of Kasha’s team

According to Bichsel, optimizing around health products differentiates Kasha from other East African–founded B2B e-commerce platforms, including Twiga and Wasoko, which have a more comprehensive range of SKUs outside pharmaceuticals (a product offering that Bichsel claims Kasha is the largest supplier of in Rwanda).

“Our core strategic focus is in the area of health and that’s where we aim to win,” she said while noting that Kasha has capabilities around telehealth and credit, a prominent feature of B2B e-commerce upstarts. “If a consumer orders from us and they don’t have a prescription, we connect them to a doctor,” said Bichsel, who worked several years for Microsoft and was a technology adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “There are other health tech capabilities; we offer inventory credit to pharmacies, clinics and hospitals. So, we overlap in that general FMCG space, but our expertise is more in health. We also build a broader distribution network, reaching the mass market customer around the country and going to the last mile.”

To ensure its products are authentic, the startup works directly with manufacturers and suppliers, sourcing and stocking the products it distributes to consumers, resellers and clinics. This is in tandem with its last-mile efforts of using various content channels to spread information on how its consumers can keep safe — and to the benefit of its enterprise business, where it provides visibility and insights to global health organizations on route to market strategies.

Speaking on the investment, Keet van Zyl, co-founder and partner at Knife Capital, a $50 million Pan-African fund, said, “In the current economic climate, it is refreshing to come across such a high-growth capital-efficient business that is female-led and optimized to serve the large mass market segment in Africa, being especially strong at serving women customers. We look forward to being a partner in the Pan-African expansion journey with this purpose-driven dedicated team.”

Since Kasha closed its Series A in late 2020, it has seen its annual recurring revenue grow by 50x, according to Bischel. She also mentioned that the company, widely misperceived as a social impact business in its early years, intends to “continue growing its revenue aggressively, become a global company, achieve a strong return for investors and ideally go public.” While it may seem grand for a female-founded and female-led startup whose counterparts commanded less than 3% of Africa’s $6 billion venture capital market last year, Rwanda’s most venture-backed company has hitched its wagon to a star and it might be only a matter of time before ambition becomes a reality. Bischel says:

Having reached this major milestone of closing our Series  B, we are even more inspired and determined to achieve Kasha’s mission of being Africa’s leading digital platform for last-mile access to health. The exponential revenue growth we’ve experienced over the last several years was driven by the high market demand for quality, affordable health products and household goods from mass market customers in urban and rural areas of East Africa, and this has proven out our business model and our team’s ability to execute.

With Knife Capital leading our Series B, bringing their strong track record of portfolio companies that have scaled across the continent with successful exits to industry leading global corporations, provides us with the proven experience we need to achieve our ambitions as a company and to take it to the next level. We will be using the funds from Series B to expand across Africa and investing in strategic areas of the business to further continue our high growth trajectory. We are especially excited to have the continued support and reinvestment from existing Kasha investors such as FinnFund, DFC, Beyond Capital Ventures and others.

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The Marvels Trailer: Three Marvels Are Better Than One

As much as I’m personally invested in seeing what comes next for Monica and Kamala, I’ve little idea how casual viewers who skipped the characters’ Disney+ shows are feeling about “The Marvels” at this stage. Where “Guardians 3” had the advantage of following two well-liked and fairly standalone MCU films, the response to “Quantumania” suggests audiences are starting to tire of superhero films that require extra homework. The unenthusiastic reception for “Secret Invasion” probably won’t help, given “The Marvels” could be perceived as something of a follow-up to that show, too.

Much like positive word of mouth buoyed “Guardians 3” to a stronger performance at the box office, early reviews and reactions could end up making or breaking “The Marvels” financially. Fortunately, the film has co-writer and director Nia DaCosta in its corner. A talented up-and-comer, DaCosta already has two well-received films under her belt (“Little Woods” and the 2021 “Candyman”) and may yet follow the likes of Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler in completing the journey from indie breakout to earning her blockbuster bona fides in the MCU. Here’s hoping she does, anyway!

Samuel L. Jackson helps round out the cast of “The Marvels” as Nick Fury, with Zawe Ashton starring as the film’s antagonist — Kree warrior Dar-Benn — and several “Ms. Marvel” actors reprising their roles as the members of Kamala’s family.

“The Marvels” will fly into theaters on November 10, 2023.

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The ‘Spider-Man 2’ story trailer teases more Venom, more villains and more drama

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be available on PlayStation 5 in just three months, but you won’t have to wait that long to learn more about the game’s plot. In a new story trailer revealed at San Diego Comic Con, Sony and Insomniac give us our first look at how Peter Parker might find himself joined with the Venom symbiote.

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The trailer is laden with dramatic tension. Peter’s best friend Harry Osborne wants to enlist his help to “heal the world.” Meanwhile, Spider-man has his hands full with Kraven the Hunter — and as the trailer presses on, a voice over emerges to describe a distressed Peter Parker presumably losing himself to the Venom symbiote and in desperate need of the help of his co-Spider-Man, Miles Morales. The story teaser leaves us with an image of a bulked-up Venom terrorizing the city and the open question of who the symbiote has merged with.

In addition to the intense story trailer, Sony has announced a special edition Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 and DualSense controller combo — both featuring the dark tendrils of the Venom symbiote crawling over the red colors of Spider-Man’s costume. Already have a PS5? Sony says the controller and PS5 console covers in the special edition will also be available to purchase on PlayStation Direct on September 1st.

Marvel’s Spider-Man will be available on October 20, 2023.

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Ask Sophie: How realistic are my chances of hiring H-1B candidates at my startup?

Sophie Alcorn Contributor

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Ask Sophie: Any guidance for changing jobs while on an H-1B?Ask Sophie: What do I need to know about getting a J-1 exchange visa?

Here’s another edition of “Ask Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

TechCrunch+ members receive access to weekly “Ask Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

With more than 750,000 H-1B registrations this year, is it realistic for my early-stage startup to consider hiring candidates who are seeking them?

— Skeptical Startup

Dear Skeptical,

I know, I know: The numbers are intense.

I understand your skepticism given that the odds of companies getting their H-1B visa candidates selected in the annual lottery process have been on the decline as demand among employers for H-1B visas continues to rise. Despite some well-publicized layoffs, many employers continue to hire, plus the CHIPS Act of 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 are spurring more job creation.

For this year’s H-1B lottery, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received a whopping 758,994 eligible registrations, and for the first time, more than half — nearly 408,900 — were H-1B candidates who had more than one employer that registered them in the lottery. (How does the annual lottery work? Check out my podcast for an overview.)

Again this year, with no second lottery on the horizon, these are important questions to ask.

Still, I believe it’s still worth it to register employees in the annual H-1B lottery as part of a multiprong strategy to attract and retain international talent in the United States, as the six-year, dual-intent status is so valuable to companies and the team members who hold it.

That remains true even if the USCIS implements a proposal to increase the H-1B lottery registration fee to $215, up from the recent $10 fee. Although it’s a large increase, the additional $205 per registration likely won’t be a limiting factor for even early-stage startups considering the process.

The chances of having an H-1B candidate picked in the lottery has dropped dramatically, particularly since 2020, when the USCIS implemented its online H-1B lottery registration system. Before 2020, companies that wanted to enter an employee or prospective employee in the H-1B lottery had to submit a completed H-1B application.

This time-intensive, costly, and risky process often meant that participating in the H-1B lottery was unrealistic for most startups. Additionally, companies had to be ready to front the full filing fees at the time of the lottery, not knowing how many people would be selected and how many checks would be cashed. Now it’s easy to register candidates, and companies have discretion about whether to proceed with the full petition after knowing whether somebody was selected.

Raising the annual cap of 85,000 H-1B visas (65,000 for those with bachelor’s degrees and 20,000 for those with master’s or higher degrees) requires congressional approval and remains highly unlikely. However, the USCIS could look at alternative administrative changes, such as limiting each H-1B candidate to one entry in the H-1B lottery regardless if that individual has multiple job offers, in order to provide a more level playing field.

This year’s H-1B lottery

While getting job offers from multiple companies that register an H-1B candidate in the lottery is not against the law, the USCIS indicated it would closely scrutinize H-1B beneficiaries, companies, and applications for potential abuses and fraud.

After this year’s lottery, the USCIS stated:

The large number of eligible registrations for beneficiaries with multiple eligible registrations — much larger than in previous years — has raised serious concerns that some may have tried to gain an unfair advantage by working together to submit multiple registrations on behalf of the same beneficiary. This may have unfairly increased their chances of selection.

If any of your early-stage employees are on F-1 Optional Practical Training (OPT) or STEM OPT, the two-year extension for students who graduated in a STEM field, make sure to enter them in the H-1B lottery every March until they are selected before they graduate and while they are maintaining OPT and STEM OPT status. You can look at other visa alternatives as well.

Visas for citizens of specific countries

You have other options if your startup’s employees or prospective employees aren’t selected in the H-1B lottery. There are a handful of work visas aimed at individuals from certain countries. If any of your employees or prospective employees are from Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, or Singapore, these are great options to consider:

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Google is reportedly testing an AI tool that can generate news articles

Google is testing a new AI technology codenamed “Genesis” that can generate news articles, according to The New York Times. The tech giant has reportedly demonstrated the tool not just for The Times, but also for executives at The Washington Post and News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal. Based on reports from people who witnessed the pitch, Genesis can whip up copy from the data fed to it, whether it’s current events or other types of information. Apparently, Google believes journalists could use it as some sort of an assistant to automate tasks and free them up for other things. 

Some of the people who saw the demonstration described it as “unsettling.” They also said that it seemed to disregard the kind of work that goes into writing accurate, digestible pieces. Jeff Jarvis, a journalist professor at the City University of New York, told The Times that journalists should use the tool “[i]f this technology can deliver factual information reliably.” Since Google has yet to launch Genesis, we can’t say if it actually can, or if it could easily lead to the dissemination of misinformation. As The Times notes, Google has been moving quickly to deploy AI technology in an effort to catch up with the Microsoft-backed company OpenAI. Its generative AI tech, Bard, was caught spouting misinformation as soon as it debuted on Twitter.

Recent attempts by some publications to use AI tools hadn’t ended up well. CNET had to issue corrections after being made aware of substantial errors in most of 77 machine-written articles it published under the CNET Money byline. And just earlier this month, Gizmodo’s io9 published a Star Wars piece full of errors attributed to the “Gizmodo Bot.” io9 deputy editor James Whitbrook said the website’s editorial team played no part in its publishing, and hence was given no chance to edit it for corrections before it went out. 

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Michael Moritz moves on, book-ending a long chapter at Sequoia Capital

Michael Moritz, the journalist-turned-VC who has long been one of the most prominent and respected investors at Sequoia Capital, has left the firm after 38 years to “deepen his advisory relationship” with Sequoia Heritage, the wealth management unit he spun up in 2010 with colleague Doug Leone and on whose board he has sat for years.

The move is effective immediately. In a note to LPs that we obtained earlier, Sequoia’s global managing partner, Roelof Botha, said Moritz will continue to represent Sequoia Capital at a handful of companies but that those seats will be “transitioned” to other partners over time.

A source familiar with the firm said the development was not socialized within the partnership far in advance of its announcement to Sequoia’s investors because Moritz long ago relinquished his day-to-day responsibilities. Indeed, he stepped down from an active management role in 2012, telling investors then that he’d been diagnosed with a “rare medical condition which can be managed but is incurable” and explaining that he’d been told that “in the next five to ten years, the quality of my life is quite likely to decline.”

Despite the adjustment, Moritz has continued to be involved at Sequoia, with some of his nine board seats newer than others. For example, he sits on the board of Getir, the Turkey-based instant delivery company that Moritz’s family office backed in 2020 before Sequoia wrote the company a check. Others of his board seats include Instacart, the U.S.-based delivery outfit; Strava, the social network for athletes; Klarna, the Stockholm-based payment outfit that last year accepted new funding at a starkly lower valuation than the previous year; and San Francisco-based Stripe, which may prove one of Sequoia’s biggest outcomes to date.

In contrast, when Leone stepped down last year from his role as “Senior Steward” of Sequoia to be replaced by Botha, who was previously managing partner of Sequoia’s U.S. and Europe operations, the move was roughly two years in the making given the many hats the role requires.

At Sequoia, stepping away is often an attenuated process. Leone continues to be part of both Sequoia’s seed and growth teams. So does another past manager at Sequoia, Jim Goetz, who oversaw Sequoia’s U.S. business with Botha until 2017 and who continues to make new investments for the firm from his perch in Miami, Fl. (Firm founder Don Valentine famously attended partner meetings for 10 years after handing the reins to Moritz and Leone.)

Moritz, however, will not be making new investments, and perhaps inevitably, that has raised eyebrows in some corners, given that Sequoia has undergone a string of other recent changes.

In a piece published earlier today, the Financial Times quotes one venture capitalist who has invested alongside Moritz and Sequoia and who reportedly said Moritz’s departure risks leaving a “leadership gap” at Sequoia. “It’s been a long time coming, but it comes at a bad time.”

The world of startup investing is still recovering from years of froth, for one thing. Further, in one of the most dramatic moves in Sequoia’s history, the firm — which has enjoyed tremendous success around the globe — announced early last month that it had decided to break up, with Sequoia’s China and India and Southeast Asia funds relaunching as new firms: HongShan and Peak XV Partners.

In an interview with Forbes, Botha, along with the firms’ two other investment heads, Neil Shen and Sailendra Singh, said the decision tied to conflicts between the funds’ respective portfolios and downplayed a geopolitical environment that has made it nearly impossible for U.S. investors to fund China deals in particular and vice versa.

It wasn’t the only big shift for Sequoia. Less than two years ago, the firm announced that it was “breaking with the traditional organization” based on fund cycles and restructuring Sequoia Capital around a singular, permanent structure that would allow it to hold public shares long after a portfolio goes public (versus distributing the shares to its investors). The decision, said Sequoia, would also enable the firm to “further increase our investments in emerging asset classes such as cryptocurrencies.”

While over the long term the move may prove fruitful, its timing proved inauspicious. Roughly six months after Sequoia restructured, the broader markets tanked, dragging down the price of public company shares that Sequoia’s investors might otherwise have sold. Sequoia also suffered a rare embarrassment when FTX, the crypto exchange into which Sequoia plugged more than $200 million, imploded nearly overnight owing to mismanagement.

Partner Alfred Lin told this editor later that the investment represented a reasonable amount from a risk management perspective when considering the $6.3 billion multibillion-dollar fund from which Sequoia’s checks were written. But a growth-stage investor who worked with Lin on that deal, Michelle Fradin, has since left Sequoia in search of an operating role.

And there have been other departures. Two investors, Kais Khimji and Daniel Chen, have left to spin up two different AI companies, both of them backed by Sequoia. (Sequoia has a history of backing its own investors, including Nubank founder David Vélez.) Also gone: Mike Vernal, a former Facebook VP who joined Sequoia as a partner in 2016 and who is taking time off until the end of this year, according to a source familiar with Vernal’s plans.

Vernal had a more senior role compared with the others, including to help oversee Sequoia’s “scout” program, wherein founders in its portfolio and their friends are given the ability to write checks from Sequoia and to share in any later rewards. Now, longtime partners Bryan Schreier and Jess Lee oversee the program along with Ian Taylor, who joined Sequoia last summer after spending three years with the seed-stage firm Pear VC.

Dealbook reported first on Moritz’s departure; The Information reported first on the departures of Vernal, Khimji, Chen, and Fradin.

Like any firm of its size and reach, Sequoia has also been hiring new talent. Earlier this year, David Cahn agreed to join Sequoia Capital as a partner on its growth team after spending more than five years with Coatue Management. Sequoia more recently poached a principal from Accel — Julien Bek — who joined its growing London-based practice.

Either way, Moritz won’t be traveling far to spend time with the team at Sequoia Heritage, which was seeded by $150 million from Moritz’s own money, $150 million from Leone, and $250 million from outside investors who they brought in.

Run by head investors Keith Johnson and Kevin Kelly, the separate legal entity holds office space in the same building as Sequoia Capital. Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Sequoia’s hedge fund unit, also has an office there.

According to a recent Bloomberg piece, Heritage was designed to work closely with Sequoia but has always retained the right to make its own investment decisions. It has made some good decisions, evidently; its assets under management reportedly grew from $4.2 billion in April 2018 to $16.4 billion as of this past April.

As for Sequoia Capital’s assets, which are separate from Sequoia Heritage and Sequoia Capital Global Equities, they’ve been trending down along with the broader startup market. As flagged by Bloomberg, those assets recently stood at $55.58 billion, per an SEC filing, compared with $85 billion at the end of 2021.

Below is Botha’s letter to investors, sent out early this morning:

We are writing to inform you that Michael Moritz will leave Sequoia Capital after nearly 38 years with the Partnership, effective July 19, 2023. We are immensely grateful for all of Michael’s contributions. He helped establish Sequoia as one of the leading technology investment groups in the world, both as a leader of the firm for two decades and through his representation of the Partnership in companies like Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, Zappos, Instacart, Stripe, and Klarna, to name a few.

Michael intends to deepen his advisory relationship with Sequoia Heritage, an independent business where he has been a founding limited partner and Board member since 2010. Sequoia Heritage is now a $15B global fund with investments in a diversified range of assets and partnerships and houses a large portion of the assets of Crankstart, the family foundation of Michael and his wife, Harriet Heyman, as well as investments from many other members of the greater Sequoia community.

Michael relinquished day-to-day management of Sequoia more than a decade ago but, since then, has provided support and counsel to the Partnership.

Michael will continue to represent Sequoia’s interests in a handful of companies where we have all enjoyed long-standing relationships with founders and CEOs. Over time, we will partner with portfolio companies to smoothly transition Sequoia board seats currently occupied by Michael.

Sequoia Capital wouldn’t be what it is today without Michael. More personally, he shaped my career, taking a chance on me as CFO of PayPal and then recruiting me to Sequoia in 2003. He has been, and will continue to be, a mentor and an inspiration to me and countless others.

Best,

Roelof on behalf of Team Sequoia

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