Selene Casabal-cruz
Investor at Sequoia Capital
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
Managing General Partner, Investor
2025 - Current
Multi-stage Investor, Family Office
2021
Opportunistic, multi-stage personal investments into daring, moonshot companies and funds run by founders we know well + host & steward to some pretty epic founder to founder meetups. Select uprounds and mature investments include: Perplexity - the future of AI search engine. Growth investor & daily user, $18B val. Lead co-investors: IVP, NVIDIA. Impulse Space - spacecraft delivery. Series A investor, now Series C $1.6B val. Lead co-investors: Founders Fund, Lux Capital. Serve Robotics - the future of food delivery robotics. Growth investor, now NASDAQ: SERV. Lead co-investors: NVIDIA, Uber. Goldfinch - global credit loans marketplace. Seed investor, now Series A $150M val. Lead co-investors: A16z, Bill Ackman. Binti - govtech for foster parents & adoption agencies. Seed investor, now Series B $60M raised. Lead co-investors: Founders Fund, First Round. Magic - generative AI to automate software engineering and research. Series A investor, $1.5B val. Lead co-investors: Sequoia Capital, CapitalG (Google Growth). Haize Labs - cybersecurity for AI models. Seed investor, $100M val. Lead co-investor: General Catalyst. (for fun) Pressman Films (LP) - independent production company behind cult classics: Wall Street, American Psycho, The Crow etc. Lightspeed Ventures (LP) - $25B AUM https://lsvp.com/
Scout Partner, Investing
2022 - 2025
Writing strategic checks on behalf of Sequoia Capital’s Scout fund. The scout fund is notably the 'first check’ prior to a lead raise in legendary startups: Uber, Stripe, Guardant Health etc. My focus area: <2 yr. preseed/seed startups with product-led experiences and fast distribution hacks in shifting markets where the founder has a deep personal mission. I actively respond & schedule intro meetings from cold outreach so feel free to DM if there's a fit. Early stage portfolio includes: Diddo - Stripe for video commerce $2.8M Seed Waldo - AI cybersecurity for large consumer platforms $2M Preseed Workflow - Github for AI creative asset creation $2.4M Preseed Nyric - Midjourney for immersive worlds $1.7M Preseed Whering - Social styling & resell app (+4M users) $5M Seed Trace - Canvas for VR creation $2M Preseed Ivy Protocol - Angelist for nature-credit markets $1.2M Preseed Veracity - Telemed for women's alternative medicine $2M Seed Dream Voyage - The first spiritual social platform (astrology, tarot etc) $1.5M Preseed Ise – AI assistants to automate full scope of retail brand-building $5M Seed Haven - Startup finances on AI autopilot Preseed Project J - Thrasio/ Openstore for e-commerce marketplaces $3.6M Seed + stealth
Sequoia Capital is a VC firm that invests in startups in the energy, financial, enterprise, healthcare, internet, and mobile industries.
Executive Advisory, Intel Ignite
2023 - 2024
Executive advisor to Intel’s deep tech acceleration program, supporting select founders driving market innovation in cybersecurity, AI, and robotics.
An ecosystem of software & hardware vendors, integrators and solution providers focused on adoption of NFV and SDN-based solutions.
Executive Advisory, Chief Innovation Office
2021 - 2024
Ongoing product & market advisory to the Global Open Innovation Officer’s executive team, which oversees long-term business initiatives and builds innovation capabilities for Chanel, including making minority investments.
Advisor to CEO, Interim Product leader (Exit to CommentSold)
2022 - 2023
Benchmark Capital-backed live selling platform. Joined as advisor to CEO post-Showcast acquisition, ultimately led strategy for app redesign, seller growth (SMBs & Enterprise Partners), and merger to CommentSold.com—the leading video commerce tech at $2.8B GMV, owned by Permira Global.
Popshop Live is a mobile live streaming marketplace where talented individuals can create and host their own shopping channel.
Raised $23,000,000.00 from Vivi Nevo, Abstract, Michael Ovitz, Baron Davis, Palm Drive Capital, Floodgate, Access Industries, Kendall Jenner, Benchmark and Sophia Amoruso.
Co-Founder, CEO (Exit to Popshop Live)
2020 - 2023
Led by Sequoia Capital, early B2C platform for livestream video selling, used by creators and social media sellers to launch their first 'live shop'. Merged with Popshop Live as part of their upcoming Series B, $500M val.
Post-Exit Advisory
2020 - 2022
Re:store was acquired by B8ta Inc., the largest operator of physical retail technology across the United States, Dubai, and Japan incld. clients Google, Lowes, Macy's marketplaces. Lead investors include Khosla Ventures, Comcast and min. owner Macy's Inc., (M:NYSE.).
Founder, CEO (Exit to B8ta Inc.)
2018 - 2020
Led by Sequoia and South Park Commons, Re:store provided retail-as-a service, helping brands with physical distribution, inventory planning, and customer insights/growth data.
Re:Store is a co-working and retail space for cult-favorite online brands.
Raised $1,700,000.00 from South Park Commons, Sequoia Capital and XFactor Ventures.
Legislative Intern
2013 - 2013
Awarded the Penn in Washington (PIW) Scholarship to serve in Senator Bob Casey’s (D-PA) judiciary office, with a focus on immigration, healthcare, and civil rights policy.
Policy Research Intern
2013 - 2013
Assisted in launching public policy campaigns for United We Win, The Affordable Care Act (ACA), etc.
Education
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
2012 - 2014
Fellow
2019 - 2019