Sequoia Capital's latest addition: Neil Shen

Updated

Sequoia Capital, one the more accomplished venture firms in Silicon Valley, has apparently added a new partner, according to Pacific Epoch. Could this be a move by Sequoia to answer the frenetic partner-hiring spree this year by its chief rival, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which picked up Colin Powell and a slew of others?

Sequoia, which gave early money to Google, Cisco, Yahoo and many more, has scooped up Neil Shen (pictured here), the co-founder and chief financial officer of Ctrip, the online travel company in China. Shen will apparently remain on Ctrip’s board of directors and stay with Ctrip for three more months.

Call it Sequoia’s summer surprise — trying to catch Kleiner asleep in August. Speaking of which, we may post soon about another possible summer surprise, potentially more significant…stay tuned.

Update: Comment below makes a good point about this possibly being Sequoia’s first appointment in China. In fact, we did ask Sequoia yesterday to confirm that Shen will remain based in China, but we never heard back. For what it’s worth, Kleiner doesn’t have a presence in China.

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