Sequoia Open Source Fellowship
Sequoia Capital·United States
A stipend covering living expenses for 6 to 12 months so an open source maintainer can work full time on their project; no equity, no company required, work from anywhere.
What you get
“Our goal is to cover reasonable living expenses for a 6 to 12 month period for our fellows. We do not take any equity or consider this to be an investment in any future company.”
Can you apply
We want to support open source creators and projects that have real world adoption. That's not always the same as having lots of stars on GitHub. Our goal is to help our fellows make significant improvements or investments in existing open source projects or support their expansion. We don't expect you to start a company or require an entity to secure funding. You're welcome to work at your own pace on either your existing project or even to begin something new. No, it is location agnostic. You can live and work from anywhere. Digital nomads welcome!
When
Always open, applications reviewed on a rolling basis.
What Sequoia Capital funds
Runs Arc, a bi-annual open call and company-building immersion for pre-seed and seed founders in the Americas and Europe, anchored on a four-day Arc Intensive. Investment terms are negotiated per company rather than published as a standard deal. Separately funds a small Open Source Fellowship that pays living expenses to maintainers with no equity taken and no company required.
Everything Sequoia Capital funds →Details
The fellowship funds open source creators whose projects have real-world adoption, whether or not those projects ever become companies. Sequoia states it takes no equity and does not treat the stipend as an investment in any future company, so equityPct is a confirmed zero rather than an unknown. Fellows keep everything they make, choose their own roadmap, and can work on an existing project or start something new. It is location agnostic with no travel required, though fellows may join Sequoia founder events. Sequoia says it will likely select two to three fellows a year and accepts applications on a rolling basis. No stipend figure is published; the stated goal is to cover reasonable living expenses, so amountMin and amountMax are null rather than zero. Past fellows include Sebastian Ramirez (FastAPI), the vLLM contributors and the Chatbot Arena team.
Read off the Sequoia Capital page on 15 Aug 2026. Funders move amounts and eligibility without announcing it, so confirm any figure here before you count on it.