12 Stats About interview zapier ceo sequoia financial to Make You Look Smart Around the Water Cooler
In this episode of the zapier.com Podcast, I interview the CEO of Sequoia Financial, a startup that is trying to make lending accessible and efficient by doing it better, for everyone.
The company is built on a premise that if you have to pay a fee to borrow money from a bank (or any other lender) you’ll have to be willing to pay a higher interest rate. That’s a very old concept and has been largely abandoned in the past few years by most lenders. Sequoia is taking a different approach that combines the concept of the fixed-rate loan with the simplicity of interest-rate optimization.
Unlike most of the other lenders that are trying to make investing in startups easier, Sequoia is actually trying to work with startups to get them the best possible interest rates, and the best possible interest rates in the industry. It’s an idea that makes sense from the big picture perspective. Loans are one of the most expensive things in life, so if they’re not as easy to get as they once were, youll have a lot more spending money to get that down the line.
Sequoia is trying to do something similar with startups, and it works. By the way, as you all know, the Sequoia Fund was the first startup investment fund of its kind, so it was a pretty big deal when that fund got acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (which incidentally is also one of the biggest U.S. banks). From the looks of it, Sequoia is going to have a lot of success with startups.
Sequoia just got bought by JPMorgan and they are going to be doing a lot of hiring. They think they are going to be a really big deal. Most of the big players are in tech startups so that will make it a lot easier for Sequoia to get involved.
Sequoia seems like it is going to be a pretty successful investment fund. For example, the $100 million Sequoia gave to the venture fund that got acquired by JPMorgan. The other big acquisition they did is a $150 million investment in their rival, Lightspeed Venture Partners, which is based in San Francisco.
I am going to say that Sequoia investors are likely to be the most cautious type of investors, but the more traditional, slow-to-action investors are also going to be cautious. They will want to get a feel for the company first. Sequoia has already done a lot of due diligence, so investors will want to make sure they are getting value for their money.
The value I am talking about is Sequoia’s investment in a company that will likely be the leader in the space, but will also likely be a little ahead of their competition, Lightspeed Venture Partners. Their investment will pay a premium to Sequoia shareholders, and it will provide Sequoia with a bigger and more experienced board.
ZAP! is a company run by Sequoia’s CEO and co-founder, Chris Sacca. Their goal is to make a very sophisticated, ultra-efficient bitcoin cash miner. The company has raised over $10 million in funding to date. Sequoia is also a very early investor in Bitfury, and is currently one of the largest investors in bitcoin mining.
ZAP has been a long-time partner of Sequoia. In fact, it was the first company that they invested in and still funds today. According to their pitch deck, they were the first to implement a zap-based transaction. They have developed a new architecture that they want to patent. Currently, they are in the process of building a team and looking for investors.