Shaun Maguire
VCPartner, Sequoia Capital
Sequoia deep tech, defense, and frontier investor
Background
Shaun Maguire is a Partner at Sequoia Capital focused on deep tech, defense, aerospace, and AI, having joined in 2019. He holds a PhD in physics from Caltech, where his dissertation covered the spectral theory of multiboundary wormholes under advisor John Preskill at the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. Before Sequoia he was a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and co-founded Expanse, a cybersecurity company acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2020. He manages Sequoia's investments in SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X, and has also backed defense technology companies including Anduril. In 2026, he was appointed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the Pentagon's Science, Technology and Innovation Board (STIB).
Investment Thesis
Invests in high-IQ founders building companies that touch atoms — deep tech, aerospace, defense, hardware, and frontier AI — often overlooked early-stage by other VCs.
Investment Focus
Stages
Typical check: $500K–$20M
Sectors
Based in: San Francisco Bay Area, USA (North America)