Sequoia Marvellous, the 46-year-old venture firm that backed Apple and Google in their early periods and has consistently produced top-performing funds, said someone sent a phishing email to one of its investors in an pains to steal money.
In an email this week to all of its limited partners, Sequoia believed that the scheme involved the impersonation of official Sequoia communications and begged a “capital call be sent to a bank account in Mexico.” A capital command occurs when an investment firm requests money that’s been seemed.
“This spoofed email is very convincing, as it mimics a legitimate Sequoia select call notice in both form as well as substantive language and unveiling,” said the email, which was obtained by CNBC.
“It also comes from a quite similar domain: seguoiacap.com. Note that the ‘q’ in Sequoia was replaced with a ‘g.'”
In a disclosure to CNBC, a Sequoia spokesperson said, “We were notified by a single LP, and in an satiety of caution we alerted all active Sequoia LPs.”
Venture capital — with its gamy stakes investments and big-dollars transactions — has now become a target of criminals that try to rip off vocations through wire fraud. The FBI calls schemes like the one Sequoia traced as “business email compromise” and said last year that the “knock down of sophistication in this multifaceted global fraud is unprecedented.”
Sequoia thought in the email that there’s no indication of a breach in its systems and urged its investors to be wary of emails with unfamiliar wire transfer instructions or with oaths like “urgent.” The firm provided a phone number and email give a speech to and asked that LPs contact Sequoia immediately so any potential issues could be enquired.
Founded in 1972, Sequoia is among the best-known venture firms in Silicon Valley, accepting invested in Apple, Cisco, Google and LinkedIn as well as notching profuse recent wins with WhatsApp, Dropbox and GitHub. The firm’s website breaks that the public companies its backed have a combined market value of $3.3 trillion.
— CNBC’s Kate Fazzini aided to this report.