Josephine Chen
Partner at Sequoia Capital
San Francisco Bay Area
Overview
Work Experience
Partner
2019 - Current
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. We spur founders to push the boundaries of what’s possible. In partnering with Sequoia, companies benefit from 48 years of tribal knowledge from working with founders like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Jan Koum, Brian Chesky, Drew Houston, Adi Tatarko, Julia Hartz and Jack Dorsey. In aggregate, Sequoia-backed companies account for more than 20% of NASDAQ's total value. From the beginning, the vast majority of money we invest has been on behalf of non-profits and schools like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT, which means founders’ accomplishments make a meaningful difference.
Sequoia Capital is a VC firm that invests in startups in the energy, financial, enterprise, healthcare, internet, and mobile industries.
Board Observer
2023
Led Series A. Bridge is an entirely new payments platform, built with stablecoins, to simplify global money movement.
Bridge is developer of an application programming interface for money movement within the financial technology sector.
Raised $58,000,000.00 from Sequoia, Haun Ventures, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Diogo Mónica.
Board Observer
2020
Led Series A. Found is building business banking and tax tools for the quickly growing independent workforce.
Found is a fintech company that provides business banking services for self-employed people.
Raised $121,199,997.00 from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.
Investor
2021
Benchling makes biotech research and development faster and more collaborative. Biotechnology has the potential to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges, such as disease, renewable energy, clean water, and hunger. The brightest minds are working on these problems but they are equipped with archaic tools. We aspire to fix this and increase the rate of scientific output with a web-based platform that allows researchers to design and run experiments, analyze data, and share results.
Benchling is an IT company that provides a cloud-based software platform for biology researchers and research and development organizations.
Raised $411,900,000.00 from Lone Pine Capital, Franklin Templeton and Altimeter Capital.
Board Observer
2020
Led Series A. Knowde is the leading marketplace for ingredients, polymers, and chemistry. For the first time ever, R&D teams and buyers can search, learn, engage, sample, quote and purchase from every major producer on earth – all in one place. Knowde provides chemical producers the technology required to move online quickly and meet the new needs of customers who want a better online buying experience.
Knowde is the online marketing platform dedicated to chemicals and ingredients.
Raised $222,800,000.00 from Sequoia Capital, Blue Cloud Ventures and Point72 Ventures.
Board Observer
2019
Led Series A. Applying AI and robotics to modernize recycling, enabling a world without waste.
AMP utilizes AI-powered sortation to enhance recycling efficiency and reduce costs.
Raised $266,067,503.00 from Sequoia Capital, Tao Capital Partners, Congruent Ventures, Range Ventures, Wellington Management, Blue Earth Capital, Liberty Mutual Investments, CalSTRS and XN.
Investment Associate
2018 - 2018
Emergence supported a few carefully selected CEOs who shared our vision that corporate software would migrate to the cloud.
Business Analyst
2016 - 2018
McKinsey Growth Tech serves leading growth stage tech players, venture capital, and growth private equity
Investor
2016 - 2016
Stripes is a growth equity firm that invests in software and consumer businesses.
Product Manager - Intern
2014 - 2014