- Andreessen Horowitz is leading a funding round for the UK startup Sequence, three people said.
- Not much is known about Sequence, which was set up by the cofounder of ID-verification firm Onfido and the founder of food platform Feedr.
- A16Z has backed some of the world’s biggest consumer-tech companies like Airbnb and Instagram.
The US venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is set to lead a rare European funding round with an investment in Sequence, a new UK startup involving the Onfido cofounder Eamon Jubbawy, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Little is yet known about Sequence, which was registered with the UK’s Companies House in August and lists two directors: Jubbawy and majority shareholder Riya Grover. Grover is a British entrepreneur who previously founded Feedr, a workplace-focused food delivery platform acquired by Compass Group in May 2020.
Competition for Sequence’s initial funding was said to be intense. The Coinbase-backing Andreessen Horowitz won out for the $15 million round at a $50 million to 60 million pre-money valuation, two London-based sources with knowledge of the matter told Insider.
Neither Sequence nor Andreessen Horowitz responded to a request for comment.
Presentation slides seen by Insider indicate that Sequence is a fintech aiming to build developer-friendly finance software. Grover is listed as Sequence’s CEO, while Jubbawy is cofounder and chair.
Jubbawy cofounded the identity-verification startup Onfido in 2012 with fellow Oxford graduates Husayn Kassai and Ruhul Amin. He acted as chief operating officer but left the company in June 2020. In November 2020, Kassai was replaced as CEO by former Talend CEO Mike Tuchen.
Andreessen Horowitz primarily invests in the US and has backed firms that grew to be major consumer-tech companies. It wrote early checks to the founders of Airbnb, Instagram, and Pinterest.
As with other big-name US investors, it has been more active in Europe in 2021. In the UK, it has invested in the events startup Hopin, the delivery firm Dishpatch, the social network Polywork, and and the nonfungible-token sneaker brand RTFKT. The fund was also a big winner when the British money-transfer fintech Wise went public earlier in 2021.
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